


By Any Other Name

by CrownsofLaurels (laurel1020)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Romantic Comedy, Alternate Universe- Road to Ninja Sasuke characterization, F/M, References to Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet References, Women Being Awesome, happy ending guaranteed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:56:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurel1020/pseuds/CrownsofLaurels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a universe where Kushina's labor wasn't interrupted by a lunatic, Minato remained Hokage, and the Uchiha Clan held it together, Kakashi and Itachi unwittingly take on the roles of Tybalt and Benvolio. AKA, the only verse where Juliet seduces Romeo and then pushes him off the balcony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I

**Act I. Prologue.**

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Konoha, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death marked love

And the continuance of their parents' rage—

Which but their children's end naught could remove—

Is now the two-hours traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, my toil shall strive to mend.

- _Prologue, Romeo & Juliet, _William Shakespeare

(With minor alterations)

* * *

**Act I. Scene I.**

It starts, like every great epic love story sung about in lore, with a fight in the playground sandbox.

The bards will quibble over who was truly at fault, but it is indisputable that Naruto had, on that occasion, built the most beautiful sandcastle in the known ninja-world. It had delicately designed windows and scaffolding, carefully sculpted with a senbon she'd found in the backyard bushes and squirreled away from her parents' inevitable 'no-s' for two whole days. She'd spent hours on the castle, trying so hard to make it just like the one in the picture books that her Mamma read to her at night before bed.

Cat, her current babysitter, had left her to her play for several hours, too relieved that the small bundle of energy was sitting still for once, and too conditioned to the sight of weaponry, to consider that it might not have been the smartest decision of his career to allow such a young child something so sharp.

Naruto stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth in concentration, gently putting the final touch on the tallest tower, a toothpick with a leaf speared on it for a flag.

This is, of course, when Uchiha Sasuke tripped in the sandbox (he swears it was all Inuzuka Kiba's fault) and fell on her masterpiece.

A moment of shock froze the scene, and then the little girl with her golden hair bound in pigtails scrunched up her face in an unpleasant expression and _wailed_.

The pale boy scrambled to his knees, trying simultaneously to re-shape the sand and soothe the girl with the pretty blue eyes, apologizing profusely for the accident and begging forgiveness and secretly thinking about the quiet disappointed look his mother's face would get when she inevitably heard how he'd made _another_ little girl cry.

Cat shifted in the trees, his manual didn't have instructions on what to do should the child start crying. He subtly moved his hands through a familiar sequence, sending out a bunshin for backup.

"I'm really sorry, I'll help put it back, see—" The young Uchiha's pleas for forgiveness fell on death ears as the grains of sand slipped through his fingers, refusing to return to the shapes the pretty girl had spent all afternoon coaxing them to hold. Panicked, the boy said the first thing to come to his mind, unknowingly sealing his fate. "My nii-san will fix it," the boy blurted out, face pale and dark eyes wide, "he's good at everything, he's the best in the world!"

The sobs cut off as quickly as they started and blue eyes opened wide. "Nuh-uh!" Hiccoughed the girl, rubbing grubby hands at her eyes, "No he's not!"

Sasuke pursed his lips in an adorable, childish pout, "Yes he is!"

"No he's not," blonde pig-tails flew as the girl vehemently shook her head from side to side. "Mine is!"

"Well," formerly warm black eyes grew cold and haughty. "Nii-san and I are Uchiha, which means we're the best." The boy paused and then added as an afterthought, in case this strange girl didn't already know, "At everything."

"That's a lie," said the girl boldly, considering the other child with narrowed eyes. "Take it back."

"No, it's not." Sasuke put his hands on his hips, frowning. _What a stupid girl_. _It wasn't a lie, the Uchiha are the best._ "My father said so," he crossed his arms, tone indicating that this was the end of the conversation.

"Then he's a liar too," shouted the blonde, scowl marring her pretty face as she stamped her foot in the sand. "You can't be good at everything, 'cuz my Daddy says my nii-san is the best nii-san, and Daddy's Hokage, so he is _better_ than the best and what he says is the most-est important-est of all."

Sasuke bristled like an angry cat, black eyes sharp, back tense, ready to spit spite in any direction.

"And," Naruto plowed forward, not knowing her own comment would inspire hatred so instant and deep in the other child that it would fuel a decade long feud, "If your nii-san said he was the best, then _he's_ a liar too."

"My nii-san is _not a liar,_ " hissed the boy, face pale. "But your Dad is a Loser," Sasuke added, recalling all the rants his own father gave about some mysterious 'Hokage' and his bad decisions, and the bitter mutterings about 'political clout' and a new era and some red-headed 'banshee' bent on bringing The Clan to its' knees. "And that makes you a Stupid Loser too."

This of course, meant war.

Which was what was happening moments later when two ninjs came upon the tumultuous scene to observe two children barely passed toddler-hood rolling in the mud, kicking, punching, and, in Naruto's case biting, as her mother hadn't quite instilled the same code of manners in the little girl that Uchiha mothers instilled in their own.

The newcomers hastily pulled the combatants apart, cradling their respective wards in their arms and sizing up the other child's savior warily.

Cat fidgeted nervously behind the taller male's shoulder, wondering if he should have intervened to stop the tantrum earlier.

"Hatake-senpai," acknowledged the younger arrival, silky black hair gathered at the nape of his neck with a hair tie.

"Itachi-san," greeted the silver-haired jōnin, head tilting in recognition.

"I apologize for my little brother's behavior," said the Uchiha heir formally.

"But, nii-san-"

"Hush, Sasuke."

"Maa," drawled the copy-ninja, "It's fine. It looks like Sasuke-chan came off a little worse anyway. Sorry for that, we're not really sure where she keeps finding the senbon."

Itachi's arms tightened around his sibling. "It was a childish fight." He looked disapprovingly down at the boy in his arms, "and they are childish injuries."

Sasuke wilted a bit. _Not fair,_ he thought. The Loser didn't look the least bit sorry, and the man— _her nii-san_?—hadn't scolded her at all.

Naruto eyed the other child somewhat smugly, one of her hands curled around Kakashi's neck and clamped tightly onto the back of the collar of his jōnin vest. And the mean boy's nii-san had called her nii-san 'senpai,' which obviously meant that she was right, and her nii-san was better.

With Naruto perched safely in his arms, Kakashi spared a glance over his shoulder at Cat. "What were they fighting about anyway?" He asked, mildly curious.

Cat's mask bobbed slowly, "If I understand correctly," said Cat hesitantly, "I believe that their dispute revolved around who had the better nii-san."

The awkward silence that settled over the group was broken only when Kakashi sheepishly raised his free hand to scratch at the back of his head. "Oh," he said, at a loss for other words, fighting back a flush of embarrassment and a strange, warm-fuzzy feeling constricting his chest.

Itachi simply sighed before fixing his brother with stern, uncompromising familiar eyes. "You will apologize to Naruto-hime for fighting, Sasuke."

Sasuke's jaw dropped a bit, his shocked wide eyes clearly conveying how betrayed he felt.

"Sasuke," Itachi's tone was edged with the smallest amount of impatience, leaving the impression that the order was non-negotiable.

Sasuke's jaw closed with a scowl, and his face hardened into a look reminiscent of his mother's when she was determined to have her way. He twisted a bit to better look at the self-satisfied girl— _How could he have ever thought she was pretty?—_ cuddled confidently in the arms of the stranger with the silver-white hair. A single dark eye the only part of the man's face that was visible, the rest remained obscured behind a mask and a hitiate. Sasuke appraised the pair from within the safety of his own relative's arms and then set his shoulders defiantly. "I'm sorry your nii-san is _old,_ Loser."

The blonde gasped dramatically, instantly rising to the bait, little fingers clenching tightly in Kakashi's vest. "Well I'm not sorry your nii-san is a liar, you-you Ass-Turd!"

Both guardians moved to contain the children as they squirmed to be set free and to resume their rudely interrupted prior activities.

"I have no idea where she learns those words," said Kakashi weakly, shrinking back at Cat's body language, which suggested that the ANBU wouldn't be taking shouldering the blame for this incident by himself.

Itachi fought back a surprising desire to laugh, catching the twitch of his lips just in time. _This boy will be the death of me,_ he thought, somewhat fondly. "For the sake of the peace," he said calmly, "perhaps we should call it a day."

"What?" Kakashi raised his visible eyebrow in mock-surprise, slinging his own ward over his shoulder and holding onto her by the ankle as she angrily pounded his back with pint-sized fists. "No fight to the death to defend the family honor?"

"Not today," Itachi allowed himself the luxury of a small smile, tightly gripping the back of Sasuke's neck in a hold that would keep the boy immobile but looked more respectful and dignified. "Maybe next time."

"Coward," Kakashi gibed good-naturedly, taking a step back before shunshin-ing away, Cat following in his wake.

"Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke," murmured Itachi, tsking affectionately at his darling brother now that they were alone on the edge of the playground. "Would you please not fight with the children of Father's political opponents, it's unbecoming and probably bad for my heart."

Sasuke relaxed as Itachi let go of his neck and the younger child shifted his weight to better hold on to the other as he was carried home. He hugged his arms around Itachi's neck and buried his face in his brother's uniform. He wasn't entirely certain what Itachi was talking about or what had just happened, but he sensed that he'd been forgiven.

_Not that I did anything wrong in the first place,_ the child thought darkly.

The walk home was quiet. Sasuke was certainly old enough to whine to be let down or to be asked to get himself home on his own two legs, but his knees were scraped and bloody and there was a nasty scratch on his thigh from where that stupid girl had raked her senbon over it, so he was fully content to let his – _amazing, wonderful, unmatched—_ nii-san do most of the work to get him home. "Did you bring me a present," he asked curiously, just now remembering that this was the first time in days that he'd seen his sibling and that usually meant a surprise.

"I didn't actually leave the Village, Sasuke," drawled Itachi, not unkindly, chuckling at the sudden return of his brother's usual good humor.

"But you've not been home in days," whined a sad face, big dark eyes looking imploringly into their older mirror.

"I've been getting ready for the chūnin exams."

Sasuke considered the answer, letting a few moments of silence and a gentle breeze pass.

Sasuke's face turned away from his brother's, "is Loser's nii-san a chūnin?"

"No," Itachi bit his lip to hide just how entertaining he found the day's events to be; hitching Sasuke up so he was resting a bit easier on his hip. " _Naruto-hime's,"_ Itachi stressed the name in a vain attempt at correction, "nii-san is a jōnin, and a very good one."

Sasuke paled and turned tearful eyes on his brother, "So he _is_ better than you?"

Itachi threw back his head and laughed, an unusual, pleasant sound coming from the typically taciturn nine-year old, surprising Sasuke. Itachi grinned and freed a hand to ruffle the morose-looking child's hair, "Indubitably."

Sasuke didn't know what that meant either, but he wasn't going to ask and look dumb in front of his nii-san, so he simply settled into his sulk and buried his face into his nii-san's shirt. "One day you'll be better," he mumbled, words muffled by cotton.

"Perhaps," was all that Itachi would say in response.

Itachi set his brother down when they could see the gates to the district in the distance. He bent over to dust some dirt off of Sasuke's back and his younger brother twisted impatiently away from his inspection.

"Sasuke," Itachi reached forward and caught his sibling's wrist, catching the boy's eyes with his own, the slight frown imparting the severity of his upcoming words and causing the younger of the two to still wearily. "In all seriousness, you need to show Naruto-hime respect in public, you can't go starting fights with her again."

"Why?" Sasuke snapped irritably. "She's a Loser. I hate her."

"Sasuke-kun," the older brother chided the younger, "You can hate her all you want behind the walls of the district. It's no secret that our families don't get along that well, but you _cannot_ talk badly about her, or pick fights with her outside your own home. Promise me?"

Sasuke scowled adorably, scuffing his shoes in the dirt. "Fine," he reluctantly conceded, crossing his arms and looking up at his brother, "but she's still a Loser."

Itachi knelt and beckoned his sibling closer. "Are we inside the district gates?"

"No."

"Then is 'Loser,' her name, Sasuke-kun?"

"No," Sasuke admitted, "but it should be."

Itachi poked his younger brother in the forehead, "Foolish little brother," he said fondly, hiding his smile behind his hand as Sasuke rubbed the attacked spot vigorously.

* * *

**Act I. Scene II.**

_**Twelve (XII) Years Later** _

"Excuse me?" Minato asked, almost certain that he'd misheard the woman, except that Kakashi suddenly straightened from his customary slouch in the back corner of the room and an aggravated spike of chakra came from Kushina, who was tensely sitting in the chair next to his own.

Sunagakure's head diplomat, the Yondaime Kazekage's oldest child, a bushy-haired, sturdy female named Temari, calmly reclined across from the Yondaime Hokage, sipping pleasantly at her cup of tea. Her brothers sat stoically at her sides, the puppeteer on her left, and the youngest, a red-head close to his own daughter's age, sat on her right.

This was an 'unofficial' meeting, a precursor to a series of talks where Suna and Konoha would re-negotiate their shaky alliance. Both sides hoped to emerge from the talks more confident about trusting the other village, which, correspondingly, meant each side would emerge more indebted to the other.

However, the current meeting was only supposed to be a light chat—friendly, mindless banter between the Hokage and his pretty wife and the children of an allied foreign leader. Apparently, Temari didn't believe in wasting time. Either that or she felt that she was more likely to successfully accomplish her goal by directly discussing the situation first with Minato and Kushina, before the Council got involved.

Temari lowered her cup and cradled it in her hands. "My father wants, more than anything, to be firmly allied with your village." Navy eyes regarded him carefully, taking note of every twitch made by either Hokage or wife. "But that is, understandably, difficult when we're being continually harassed by one of your own whom you've failed to either control or apprehend."

A muscle in Minato's jaw tightened at the reminder of Orochimaru, the missing ninja whom his Sensei had _begged_ to be allowed to handle, but who'd gone on and off their radar and been allowed to roam unapprehended for far too long. He was finally facing the consequences of indulging his teacher's whims and allowing Jiraiya to play the cat-and-mouse game that had existed between the two Sannin since before Minato was born.

"As you know," continued the blonde, carefully presenting her obviously well-rehearsed words, "We have proof that the man has been abducting and experimenting on the children of our village. We demand that you find a way to compensate us for the harm we've suffered, and to reassure us of your commitment to our alliance."

Minato longed to run a hand through his hair in irritation, but restrained the impulse. He couldn't afford to show the reaction to the young woman before him, who was ready to pounce on any sign of guilt or weakness. He was truly disturbed by the accusations, mind flashing back to his own memories of discovering the Snake's labs, and subsequently the remains of the experiments' victims. _Goddammit, Sensei, you promised you'd handled this._ Obviously, Jiraiya hadn't been as thorough as he'd asserted when investigating and 'handling' the Orochimaru matter. He'd give Sensei a piece of his mind later. First, he needed to figure out the best way to deal with Suna, they wouldn't have come on this strong in their requests if they didn't have concrete evidence of the traitorous Sannin's involvement.

"Our Village believes that the best way to accomplish this," Temari's studious gaze flickered over to Kushina, "is to create a physical, literal alliance between our people in addition to the abstract agreement to provide support, encourage trade, and come to the other party's aide that has always existed. This could be accomplished with the marriage of our next Hokage," Temari tipped her head, acknowledging the brother seated on her right, "to your own child, Yondaime-sama."

Her tone was respectful and formal, incredibly polite, but the grip Kushina had on his knee underneath the table was strong enough to shatter a lesser man's kneecap. Minato focused on not clenching his teeth and maintaining a distant, neutral expression.

His problem was that the suggestion wasn't absurd, it was very logical, and would clearly benefit all parties and create an unprecedented alliance between the two villages. Minato had been wondering at the reasons underlying the Yondaime Kazekage's seemingly abrupt, recent announcement of his successor. Gaara was a formidable ninja, especially after the Kazekage had agreed to let Jiraiya modify the boy's containment seal, allowing Gaara to develop an inimitable control of his home environment, but he was still quite young. Now Minato could see that the Kazekage had been making a move to improve his son's position as a suitor for marriage to Naruto.

Even considering the personalities of the two children, it wasn't an ill-conceived match. He was well aware that his daughter and the Kazekage's children were on friendly terms. The group had bonded over the years, being ineluctably dragged from one village to the other at their fathers' behest, doomed as they were from birth to a career in which their conduct would forever have inescapable political consequences.

And Naruto-chan was especially sensitive to the trio's unique family dynamic, her own mother being a jinchūriki and she herself conditioned from childhood to accept the possibility that Naruto herself, in an emergency, or more likely, her own eventual offspring, would become Konoha's next jinchūriki. Minato had heard her speak fondly of the teal eyed boy, in a tone she generally reserved for teasing Kakashi, someone she had been raised to consider a sibling. And he knew, from his own observations, that when Gaara was in Konoha, he was most relaxed in Naruto's presence and always thoroughly appreciative of his daughter's gift of friendship.

Furthermore, while Minato had made it clear that he wasn't planning on retiring from his position anytime soon, it was no small secret that if his reign came to an unexpectedly early end, the Council currently favored bullying either of the remaining loyal Sannin, or the equally reluctant copy-ninja into assuming the role. None of these individuals would hesitate to come to Naruto's aide if she requested it.

Admittedly, both Naruto and Gaara were young, but an engagement of a year or two wouldn't be an unreasonable or unanticipated request. And it was likely that Sunagakure would acquiesce to an agreement where some of Naruto's children would retain their mother's clan name and, once of age, permanently become part of Konoha's forces and take up the Uzumaki's duties to Konoha.

It was generous of Suna too, in a certain fashion. Stolen, tortured children were a grievous injury, and in return, they weren't asking for a pound of flesh, but for a union between two already acquainted, friendly ninja who would produce children of their own. An eye for an eye, in a sense, children for children. In return for surrendering a kunoichi for marriage to the Kazekage, the offspring of that union, children of the most powerful military leader of Sunagakure and grandchildren of the most powerful military leader of Konohagakure, would assuredly be raised with a fondness for Konoha, a predisposition to treat with their mother's Village on the most favorable terms, for decades to come.

It was an excellent solution.

The Council would love it.

_Damnit._

The Council was going to eat this shit up, and his darling, passionate wife would castrate him in his sleep with a wooden spoon for seriously considering sending their sixteen-year-old, beloved, only child off to a foreign village to take part in a marriage orchestrated for political leverage.

* * *

Meanwhile, across the Village, deep within the solid, intimidating walls of the Uchiha compound, Uchiha Itachi was contemplating fratricide.

Gone was the worshipful younger brother with the adorable pout, and in his place was a sullen, impulsive, hormonal teenager of the most spoiled and indulged variety, who was currently swinging through moods so swiftly that their mother had thrown her apron in the air and stormed off, muttering under her breath about how a daughter would have been easier to deal with, and delegating the task of breaking the boy from his current slump to her oldest child.

"I thought you said that the Sakura girl was in love with you," Itachi said, striving to be patient and understanding.

"That was before she saw Karin," Sasuke said flatly from his bed, where he lay sprawled on his back across the top of the covers, arms crossed behind his head. He studiously examined the ceiling.

Itachi paused, not sure if Sasuke meant that his latest girlfriend had seen Sasuke flirting with the Karin girl and dumped Sasuke in a jealous tantrum, or if Sakura had decided that it was simpler just to be with another woman rather than put up with his brother.

It would explain several questions he had about some of the girl's behaviors, but perhaps he should not inquire too deeply into the circumstances surrounding his little brother's latest breakup.

"If she cannot recognize your value, then she is not worthy of being the recipient of your affections," stated Itachi calmly, repeating their mother's wise words with a practiced air. He wasn't quite sure why. It wasn't like Sasuke had heeded the advice the first dozen times it had been imparted.

"But I love her nii-san," said Sasuke plaintively, turning his head to gaze at his sibling with sincere black eyes.

"You just thought you loved her, Sasuke," Itachi replied, impatience edging into his voice. He'd have more sympathy for his younger sibling if Sasuke hadn't said the same thing about every girl he'd brought home to meet their mother since reaching the age of thirteen. "If your life experiences have taught you anything, you should know that there will be other girls."

"Not like this one," Sasuke said belligerently. "No one can have eyes as bright as hers, or hair as soft, or be as smart—"

"Sasuke," Itachi cut his brother off quickly. He was painfully, intimately familiar with just how long his brother could wax poetic about a female love interest. He struggled to maintain his composure and not give into the rapidly increasing temptation to simply drag the boy from his room and give him a good dunk in the lake. This…self-indulgent sappiness, for lack of a better term, was a new behavior for his younger sibling. His mother kept repeating, in a buoyant tone with a forced smile, that this was a 'phase' which his little brother would outgrow soon. Itachi clung to the knowledge that his mother had never before been wrong about such things, but this particular phase was sorely testing Itachi's ability to tolerate his younger sibling's 'normal' teenage mental growth and development.

"What?" Sighed the younger boy, leveling his sad eyes at his brother once more.

Itachi reconsidered the previously discarded strategy of washing his hands of the matter and leaving Sasuke to their father's discipline, but that had proved largely ineffective in the past. Fugaku's method of dealing with his youngest's flair for the dramatic was to pretend that nothing was happening and to ignore the boy. This would only leave them all exactly where they had started. "You must leave this room," Itachi settled for stating, hoping his voice sounded like it was giving an order which must be heeded. "You have been moping in here for three days. It is unbecoming of someone of your station, and detrimental to your progress as a ninja." Which after all, was Itachi's responsibility to oversee, it would reflect badly on Itachi if Sasuke's training suffered, and ultimately endanger Sasuke's own safety. Which Itachi would not allow to happen.

Sasuke just scowled and rolled over, turning his back to his brother. "Leaving this room won't make Sakura love me again."

Itachi took a moment to make out the words, muffled as they were by his brother's face being firmly pressed into the bed sheets. Upon comprehension, he expelled an exasperated huff and advanced upon the bed, Sasuke rolling back over to regard his approaching sibling with a churlish expression.

Itachi narrowed his eyes and refused to feel guilty when he poked his brother harshly in the forehead, Sasuke's indignant squawk and delayed reflex failing to bat away his sibling's hand and stop the familiar, unwelcome maneuver.

"Foolish little brother," Itachi bit out, "Tomorrow evening, there is a festival in the Village to welcome the ambassadors from Sunagakure. You will be out of bed, bathed, dressed, and in all other means presentable when I arrive to accompany you and our parents to the event."

"If you are not," Itachi leaned close to emphasize the threat, "I will tell cousin Shisui exactly who has been raiding his mother's prized rose garden for bouquets for their 'sweetheart' of the week, am I understood?"

Sasuke's eyes went wide and he gave a barely audible 'meep,' recalling the last time he'd angered that particular cousin. He's spent a week wooing a girl he thought was Ino, only to discover he'd been making moon-eyes at Ino's sixty-year old grandmother. The woman was thoroughly flattered, and to the day gave Sasuke an outrageous discount whenever he gathered enough courage and pride to venture back. Still, it was one of the more humiliating lessons Sasuke had learned at the hands of his cousin, and Ino had yet to stop bursting into hysterical giggles whenever he entered the store. It was much more convenient to sneak his Aunt's flowers, although he'd admit to having been a little greedy lately in his desperate attempts to win back Sakura's affections.

He meekly agreed to his brother's demands and began to mentally prepare himself for spending a painful evening dealing with women inferior to his beautiful ex-girlfriend in every way.

* * *

**Act I. Scene III.**

Kushina's nervous search for her daughter inevitably led her to Konoha's _sanctioned_ experimental medical labs, where her boisterous child could generally be found in between training sessions harassing her favorite 'grandmother,' her rather volatile best friend, and her somewhat tetchy cousin.

Naruto liked to live dangerously.

"Tsunade-sama," Kushina greeted, her odd tone immediately garnering the older woman's attention.

"What's wrong with you?" The medical expert carefully scrutinized the visibly discomfited red head, as she stood anxiously in the doorway of the Senju's personal office, worrying strands of her long red hair between her fingers.

"I need to talk with Naru-chan, have you seen her?"

"Eh," Tsunade tried to think back to the last time she'd seen the young blonde, but her thoughts were interrupted by a mild explosion, loud enough to clearly be heard through the sterile hallways, but not strong enough to rattle the walls or to raise a concern about structural damage.

Tsunade pursed her lips and waved her hand in the general direction of the sound.

Kushina looked a bit exasperated and had an embarrassed flush to her cheeks, non-verbally acknowledging that _of course_ it would be her child responsible for the chaos.

"After you," Tsunade said magnanimously, following the jinchūriki down the hallway toward a doorway filled with billowing steam.

Kushina cautiously poked her head into the lab, then proceeded to enter the room when the bickering and coughing coming from within made it clear that whatever had happened, the fumes weren't hazardous and the situation was as controlled as could be expected.

"I told you, you have to watch your potassium nitrate!"

"Well, excuse me for focusing my education on how to heal people instead of how to blow them up!"

"That was freaking aweso—"

"Naruto-chan," interrupted Kushina, crossing the room to open the window, "Would you please?" She made a shooing motion with her hands, the meaning of which her daughter caught onto quickly.

"Oh, yeah!" A few hand motions later and a hastily applied wind jutsu blew the worst of the smoke outside, revealing three teenage girls. A blonde with pigtails was bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet, while a red-head with glasses was scowling at a pretty girl with long pink hair who was rubbing watery green eyes.

"Karin," Tsunade scolded, hands on her hips and tapping her foot impatiently, "How many times have you been told that the hospital labs aren't the place to test your personal explosive projects?"

Karin stood nonplussed, merely pausing to take off her glasses and rubbing them clean on her stained lab coat.

"Karin," repeated Tsunade, tone lowering to a growl.

"Oh, come on Granny," Naruto bounded over to the older woman's side, using both hands to latch onto one of the woman's arms and employing pleading blue eyes to her full advantage, "Sakura-chan was being all gloomy because she broke up with Ass-turd again, and we were just trying to cheer her up! We didn't mean any harm, promise! And look," Naruto gestured to the lab as a whole, "we didn't even break anything!"

"I'm not your grandmother," snapped Tsunade, habitually, "and calm down, just, stop that—" she pushed the younger girl off and gripped her by both shoulders, "can't you stay still for one minute?"

"No," chirped the girl, still bouncing a bit as the older blonde attempted to hold her still.

"Kushina-chan, your offspring's defective."

Kushina sighed, but was interrupted by a sheepish admission from Sakura.

"We may have each consumed a container of ice cream earlier today."

Tsunade blinked and released her giddy sixteen-year-old quarry, recognizing the futility of her endeavor.

"Girls," the red-headed jōnin reprimanded, without much venom.

"Mom!" Naruto threw her arms up in the air, gesturing wildly, "It was a rare occasion, a celebration! We've been telling her to dump Pretty-Boy's butt for a year, and she finally found the balls to do it."

"Girls don't have balls," interjected Karin practically.

"Yeah well," mild irritation flickered across Naruto's blue eyes, "she found where Ass-turd hid his then and borrowed 'em for a bit. It's not like he uses them anyway."

"Girls," repeated Kushina, a little more forcefully, "What have I said about discussing the genitalia of the Uchiha men?"

Karin and Naruto shared a look and then obediently intoned in unison, "They may have the nicest asses in the Village, but at the end of the day, that's all they are, just a pretty ass."

"That's right," Kushina said with a firm nod and a tilt of the head to a subtly wilting Sakura, "And I'm sorry Sakura dear, but you _are_ better off without him, you know my opinion on the subject."

"Yes, Auntie Kushina," murmured Sakura softly, chastened.

"See," beamed Naruto, "I told you, you're totally better off sans Ass-turd."

"Can't you find a more intelligent insulting descriptive for the boy," drawled Tsunade, "continuing to call him that just advertises the fact that we never managed to educate you properly."

Naruto threw a dark glare toward the older woman, "Well, I tried calling him Bastard, but Mom says that's more insulting to his mother than to him, and that his mom is mostly a victim of unfortunate circumstance who suffers enough for her bad life choices by simply having to stay married to her husband." Naruto sniffed, "But I realize that you're so old that you're starting to forget things like that, so you're forgiven."

"Watch it brat," Tsunade snarled, cracking her knuckles, "I brought you into this world, I can take you out."

Kushina frowned, "Technically, I brought her into this world."

Tsunade waved off the complaint, "You just sat there and yelled, I did the hard work and made sure you both made it through the ordeal alive."

"Mom," Naruto quickly decided to intervene before the age-old argument reached higher decibel levels, "why are you here anyway, is anything wrong?" Naruto maneuvered herself into her mother's personal bubble, so as to draw her mother's full attention away from the oldest woman in the room.

"Oh!" Kushina's eyes brightened in remembrance and then fell a little in dismay.

"Mom?" Naruto asked again, suddenly worried as her mother bit her lip, a nervous habit she indulged in when she didn't want to say something that was on her mind.

"Naru-chan," intoned her mother, "You remember Gaara-san, right?" Kushina laid a heavy hand on her child's shoulder, gently pushing the girl down into sitting on a stool by a counter.

"Yes," the blonde readily admitted, brow furrowing in confusion, "Is he alright? He wasn't attacked was he? For being—" she trailed off, eyes darting toward Karin and Sakura.

Karin, as a sensor familiar with both her aunt's chakra and a having a brief acquaintance with the Kazekage's son, quickly caught on to the unspoken dialogue.

Sakura, however, simply blinked, never having been brought in on Kushina's secret despite her best-friend status with Naruto.

Naruto cleared her throat and looked quickly back to her mother.

"For being the son of the Kazekage?" Her mother supplied. "No, he's fine. But he's here with his siblings, to re-negotiate our alliance with Suna, and they had an interesting proposition that your father," she paused, closed her eyes and took a deep breath before grudgingly continuing, " _and I_ would like you to consider." Kushina opened her eyes and patted her daughter's cheek nervously, "but only consider, mind you! You don't have to agree to it if you don't want to, it's just," Kushina fumbled for words, "it's a good idea for the Village and your father thinks that it merits consideration," she finished weakly.

Naruto regarded her mother blankly, not comprehending what her mother was dancing around in any form or fashion.

Tsunade, however, slapped the counter next to her so hard a beaker rattled off and crashed to the floor, the sound of it shattering overwhelmed by the sound of the older woman's laughter. "Oh no," wheezed Tsunade, "no they didn't—"

"Tsunade-sama," Kushina bit out between clenched teeth, "You are not helping."

Tsunade ignored the jōnin's rebuke. "Hahaha," continued Tsunade jovially, "this calls for saké." She started browsing through the cabinets, eventually pulling out a handful of small cups and a bottle of liquor carefully hidden behind a plastic model of the inside of a human ear.

"I suppose the rest of us will be called to discuss this tomorrow?" Tsunade intoned, as she poured the drink into the cups, passing them out to everyone (except Sakura, who politely declined).

"Yes," confessed Kushina, shoulders slumping a bit, "They informed us of their intentions today, and I've spent the last three hours having a one-sided screaming match with Minato about it, but he's absolutely adamant that we at least _consider_ the idea."

"I can see the benefits," Tsunade admitted, sipping from her cup.

Kushina made a strange face and finished her glass in one gulp. She turned to her daughter, "You're going to want to drink that."

Naruto's eyes widened, her mother wasn't exactly strict when it came to monitoring her daughter's intake of alcohol, but she usually wasn't one to encourage drinking either. She tended to be a bit protective of her only child, but generally acknowledged that, according to ninja customs, Naruto was an adult. After letting Naruto experience an absolutely miserable hang-over after her first drinking experience (which was all Kakashi-nii-san's fault, by the way), she took a step back and trusted her daughter to be responsible enough to handle the consequences of over-indulgence on her own. Nonetheless, Naruto followed her mother's orders, grimacing as the cheap warm alcohol rushed down her throat.

She turned expectant eyes upon her mother, ignoring the curious looks from her cousin and best-friend as they blended into the background.

"Naru-chan," Kushina said with a sigh, deciding to just cut to the chase, "How would you feel about marrying Gaara-san?"

Naruto was very glad that she'd already swallowed her drink, otherwise she probably would have spewed it out in her mother's face.

Kushina considered herself to be quite close to her daughter. She'd perhaps hovered a bit too much over her only child, especially when she insisted that the girl be apprenticed to her rather than placed on a traditional three man team upon graduating from the Academy, but she'd had a lot of clan-specific techniques to teach the girl. And she rationalized that she'd fully compensated for the sheltered upbringing that she had insisted upon providing, and to which Minato had indulgently agreed, by letting Jiraiya cart her child across the known world for a year and a half. She and Minato were still discovering and dealing with all the consequences of that fiasco. However, all this meant that Kushina didn't need her flustered, spluttering child to actually articulate a verbal response to the question she'd posed in order to understand the teenager's feelings on the matter.

"Yeah," Kushina gave a twisted smile, awkwardly patting her daughter on the head, "I thought so. Just," she stopped patting her child, belatedly remembering that this was a person, not one of Kakashi's ninken. "Just make sure to give him a chance at the festival tomorrow night. Ok?"

* * *

**Act I. Scene IV.**

"What is that?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow as he gingerly took the feathered monstrosity that Itachi handed to him.

"It's a mask," Itachi replied, working to hide the impatience bleeding into his voice. He examined Sasuke critically. At least his brother was bathed and appropriately dressed. Sasuke looked respectable enough in the navy yukata. The gloomy cast to his face made him resemble their father more for once and Itachi felt his shoulders relax a bit, assured his brother had snapped out his sulk enough to behave appropriately in public.

Their mother floated into the room, years of kunoichi training and socked feet ensuring she didn't emit a sound. She beamed upon seeing them, "My two handsome boys," she reached up to affectionately brush a hand across each of their cheeks in turn.

"Mother," Sasuke nodded, before returning his dark gaze to the mass of feathers in his hands.

Mikoto gave Itachi's arm an appreciative squeeze, gaze conveying her gratitude for dealing with his sibling.

"I'm not wearing this."

Itachi felt his mother stiffen and he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulders. "Then you will look very foolish and draw unwanted attention to yourself, as everyone will be wearing one tonight."

"Why?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow, tone incredulous.

"Because Kushina-sama thought it would be fun, it's apparently a type of Western game to play at a party, something called a masque," Mikoto said placidly.

Sasuke pursed his lips and took a better look at the mask in his hands. "Who chose these?"

"I did," said Mikoto quickly, holding her own up for Sasuke's inspection, the evening lantern light flickering off the fake red and blue gemstones.

"Yours doesn't have feathers," Sasuke protested.

"No," agreed his mother, "they're all different, darling. That one reminded me of you."

And with that, Sasuke ceased whining, because Mikoto had raised both of her boys well enough to know better than to complain about something their mother had personally picked out for them.

Fugaku blew into the room with the force of a storm, a familiar scowl plastered across his naturally stern features, the particular tension in his eyes letting Itachi know the man had just come from an unexpectedly unpleasant Village Council session.

"Anything wrong?" Itachi inquired, worrying that he might need to know what had happened if he was to 'hold court' tonight and rub shoulders with the other clan heads and heirs.

"No," said their father in a brusque manner, but his eyes gave away the lie, and the tiny shake of his head let his oldest son know that the issue could wait to be discussed until they were out of hearing range of the rest of the household.

Itachi merely inclined his head as his father quickly took stock of the state of his family. "We're ready then?"

It was a rhetorical question, and as no one dared contradict his expectations, he moved forward to lead the small family to the evening's festivities.

"Wait dear, you forgot your mask."

"What?"

Mikoto handed him a gaudy mask of a similar design to her own, Fugaku's being a more masculine fashion.

The older man's brows furrowed in confusion for a moment, and he looked up, protest on his lips dying at the look in his wife's. He smoothly aborted the move to hand the mask back to her and simply turned on his heel without a word and continued walking out the door.

Itachi checked his grin, knowing his father was a firm believer in the phrase, ' _pick your battles wisely.'_

A quick look at his foolish little brother confirmed that Sasuke was disgruntled that their father hadn't put a stop to the 'nonsense,' thwarting Sasuke's last hope that he wouldn't be made to don the mask.

Itachi stepped forward to follow their parents and Sasuke fell in line behind him. Itachi pulled his own mask out of the crook of his arm, from where he'd stashed it. It was constructed of cloth and plastic, not the smooth, cold ceramic to which he was accustomed. However, the strange copper lines on the creation made it look like a weasel, in a very abstract way.

Funny.

He'd never told his mother that.

Itachi's long fingers carefully applied the mask to his face with practiced ease.

"This is stupid," Sasuke grumbled, reaching up to attach his own feathered mask to his face, not quite as comfortable as his older brother was with keeping something in place with only the thin application of chakra. He walked in Itachi's shadow, purposefully matching his stride to his brother's as the two trailed after their parents toward the center of the Village.

"Half of the people there are going to have some chakra sensing or tracking abilities that let them know who is who," muttered Sasuke, eyes trained forward.

Itachi was pleased to see that at the very least, Sasuke was alert enough to fall back into the well-conditioned habits of being conscious of his surroundings. He was glad that he'd trained him well enough to resist giving into the easy temptation to feel completely at ease within the Village walls, especially when one was in a sour mood to start with and distracted by unpleasant personal thoughts.

"Stop whining, little brother." Itachi marveled at his own ability to maintain a moderate tone. "If you weren't so determined to drown yourself in your imagined sorrows, you might actually find tonight to be quite enjoyable."

"I doubt it," said Sasuke, being obtusely pessimistic, kicking a pebble in his path with slightly too much force and barely catching himself from tripping over his own sandals.

Itachi stifled the urge to physically grab the back of his brother's neck and shake some sense into him, as he had done on an occasion or two when they were younger. Instead, as the lights grew brighter and the sound of merriment and joy began to fill the increasingly crowded streets, he clapped a strong hand to Sasuke's back, gripped the boy's collar, and leaned down to whisper the following advice: "You know, Sasuke, you are young and single and as mother has told you, looking perfectly handsome tonight. If you just opened your eyes for one minute, I'm sure you could find sufficient entertainment to distract you for a week or two and make you forget all about your former flame."

The words were a bit cruel and slightly mocking, but Itachi's ability to humor his younger brother for the evening had started out the evening weak and rapidly dwindled. Certainly, he loved his foolish little brother, but he couldn't wait for a year or two to pass and for Sasuke to grow out of this hormonal induced fascination with and dependence upon affection from those of the opposite gender. It would only get him in trouble down the road. Hopefully he'd learn his lesson quickly, and mature accordingly, or Itachi would have to start giving serious consideration to alternative plans to force his darling baby brother to 'grow the fuck up,' as Shisui had so eloquently put during their last meeting. Speaking of Shisui, it was high time for Itachi to go find company more suited to his own age and interests. He pushed his slightly stunned younger sibling forward into the crowd and stepped back, fading into the shadows as only a ninja could.

* * *

**Act I. Scene V.**

Sasuke blinked, and stood uncertainly in the middle of the road, a bit shocked at his older brother's abrupt abandonment. It was rather rude—

"Watch where you're standing," said the bulky stranger who'd rammed roughly into Sasuke's shoulder in the crowd, jostling the boy from his thoughts.

Sasuke scowled at the man, but quickly straightened and moved to the edge of the street so he could gather his thoughts, knowing that his identity wasn't readily ascertainable to civilians while he was wearing a mask and not willing to cause a scene over such a simple issue.

His brother's atypical departure and cold parting words had Sasuke reflecting on their recent interactions to try and identify the cause. Sasuke grimaced as he thought over the events of the past few days and ran a hand through his spiky hair. He supposed he had been a bit, well, selfish, ever since his recent argument with Sakura.

Sasuke nimbly dodged some children running past him with a shout, giggling wildly as they chased a brightly colored ball down the street. Now that he thought about it, he had to admit that he'd been preoccupied and distracted for weeks, trying to salvage his most recent relationship. He pressed his back into the solid wood of a closed door store front, and tried to recall when the last time was that he'd asked Itachi how the man felt, or even what he had done that day.

The children kicked the ball back the way they came, and then down a side road and back again before being caught and scolded by a harried looking teenager. Someone's older sister from the looks of it, stuck babysitting for the evening and having a hard time keeping track of her charges when everyone was wearing a mask. Apparently some of the children had been swapping their own to confuse her, and she un-masked them all, confiscating the accessories amidst a chorus of tearful protests and herding the children back to an area of the Village that Sasuke knew from personal experience who host a variety of children's booths and games.

Sasuke still couldn't recall the last time he'd done so much as ask Itachi 'How was work today?'

His head slumped to his chest.

He was a horrible brother, and he needed a drink.

Sasuke made his way to the saké vendors, all out in force tonight advertising expensive or adventurous mixes depending on ones' taste. As he wasn't in the mood for something sweet, he purchased an entire chilled bottle of Honjozo, which a full-bellied bald tōji assured him he would enjoy. The saké brewer was proud of his product, which was selling quickly, and Sasuke took his purchase and slipped away through the crowd, heading toward the outer edges of the festivities, turning down a back road whenever he sensed or saw a clansmen approaching. He wasn't in the mood for company, he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. He would take one last night to grieve for the death of his relationship with Sakura, and then tomorrow morning he would wake up and re-focus on his studies and his family, and be a better brother. He picked up some riceballs filled with dried tuna and tomatoes, his go-to comfort food, and took his dinner and his liquor out to a street where the store fronts merged seamlessly with the beginnings of a residential district.

He found a row of abandoned booths lining both sides of a dimly lit street. Some of the tables had abandoned plates and wrappers, they were probably used by someone who had already sold out of their wares, or they had been tables that were decided to be unnecessary at the last minute. A few people walked through the street to get to other places, but the only activity nearby was a goldfish-scooping game a dozen or so yards away. Sasuke sat on top of the empty table farthest from the children's game. He was glad his mask only covered the top half of his face, unlike the masks he'd seen the ANBU wear. It made it easier to blend in as someone not worthy of attention and consume his purchases in peace. He found himself enjoying the anonymity the mask provided. He watched as one little boy gleefully caught a fish/ He prompty turned to give it to his little sister, a girl of similar features who was wearing a pink, floral-patterned yukata painfully reminiscent of the one Sakura had worn the last time he'd gone to—

"Yo!"

Sasuke started and jumped a bit, nearly knocking over the bottle of saké as a head full of silver hair suddenly popped into his vision, a foot away from his face.

Sasuke scowled, noting the fact that Hatake Kakashi had to have purposefully bent in an awkward manner to make sure that Sasuke hadn't seen him approach and startle the younger boy with the sudden appearance of just his face.

The jōnin straightened as Sasuke recollected himself and turned to address the new arrival.

"What?" Sasuke snapped, having long learned to throw formalities out the window when it came to the eccentric man. It just wasn't worth the effort to be nice to Hatake Kakashi. The man would read porn in front of your mother without batting an eye. _Shameless pervert_ , thought Sasuke darkly.

Even Hatake was wearing a mask tonight, a garish thing of glitter and gold and brown glass stones, which looked vaguely like a dog if one squinted in the dim light. Sasuke glowered further, actually, Hatake was technically wearing a mask over a mask, and now that the jōnin's entire face was covered, Sasuke was finding it very disconcerting to be facing the man.

"I was wondering if you'd seen our favorite blonde," the man drawled, "I've been looking for her."

Sasuke stiffened, "She's not my favorite anything." Despite the vaguely worded question, Sasuke had no doubt about the identity of the person to whom Hatake referred. The man's mask was entirely appropriate, he'd been a tame, obedient guard dog to the girl for as far back as Sasuke's memory stretched. Sasuke wrinkled his nose. He really disliked dealing with the copy ninja, a man who made his fame off of _Sasuke's_ _Clan's bloodline._ Unfortunately, Sasuke had the horrid luck to be born into the same age group as Hatake's main charge, which put them into contact more often than anyone was comfortable.

"Mah," drawled the older ninja, stuffing his hands into his pockets and letting his shoulders droop in an exaggerated slouch of disappointment. "Are you telling me that someone else is at the top of your list of favorite people to call 'Loser'? She'll be so disappointed to hear it, why, it might just break her heart."

Sasuke scowled and took a drink of his sake, "She doesn't care about me, we share a justifiable mutual hatred."

The man's silently shaking shoulders implied that the older ninja was laughing at him.

Sasuke hated him too.

"Well," the older man said teasingly, "We all know that there is a fine line between love and hate."

Sasuke blinked, startled.

"You should tread it carefully, Sasuke-chan." Kakashi hummed absently, "Just think of how much drama you'd cause if you fell too far over the edge either way."

Sasuke simmered, understanding Kakashi's veiled threat as a caution against acting out against the girl, _Does he think I'm as impulsive as she is? She starts everything._ Ultimately, Sasuke decided to ignore the asinine comments and shoo the other ninja off, but his eyes were drawn to some movement under the tablecloth of an abandoned table pushed up against the wall across the street. He looked blankly at the copy ninja, "I haven't seen her, is there anything else you wanted?"

Kakashi seemed to be considering his answer, "Are you sure?" The copy ninja took a step back to survey the rest of the street. "Because I tracked her down to _here_ , and while I don't see her, it certainly smells like she's close by—"

The jōnin's musings were interrupted by the arrival of an ANBU, clad all in black with unfamiliar markings on his traditional mask.

"Moose." Kakashi dipped his head in acknowledgment.

_Moose?_ Sasuke kept the bewilderment from showing on his face. _What's a 'moose'?_

"Kushina-sama requests your attendance," the ANBU intoned.

Kakashi seemed to hesitate. "I haven't found her yet," he eventually said.

"Kushina-sama requests your attendance," repeated Moose.

Kakashi slumped, more earnestly this time. "Fine." He walked down the street, accompanied by Moose. "I suppose you're to make sure I get there in a timely fashion?"

Moose said nothing.

"Later, Sasuke-chan!" Hatake tossed loudly over his shoulder before taking to the roof tops.

Sasuke waited until he felt the chakra signature fade from the edge of his awareness, closing his eyes and enjoying the sip of the bottle he had half-way finished. Sasuke wasn't a natural born sensor, and it was harder for him to 'learn' the signature of a person and to feel when they were approaching. It was a weakness he tried to compensate for by being overly alert to his surroundings on most days, lest he get taken advantage of by people like Hatake Kakashi, who seemed to take perverse pleasure from giving their supposed comrades heart attacks. But once he knew someone was there, it was hard to hide from him due to his bloodline. Hatake still relied on his nose far too much, when properly using that eye of his would often resolve his dilemma much quicker.

Sasuke opened Sharingan-red eyes to confirm his earlier suspicions. He just as quickly deactivated his bloodline, smoothly slipping off the table and getting to his feet, gathering the rest of his drink and his yet to be eaten riceballs before approaching his prey. He set his food down on top of the table across the way and knelt, pulling up the tablecloth and putting his head under it, eyes dilating to better see in the dimmer light.

Baleful blue eyes glared at him, everything tinted red under the table from the light filtering in through the crimson tablecloth.

"Get in or get out," the familiar face hissed.

Sasuke smirked, briefly retreated to retrieve his food, and crawled in under the table, seating himself next to the girl, back braced against the wall that the table had been pushed against. It was an uncomfortable fit, and he was almost too tall for the position. His companion had several inches between her head and the underside of the tabletop, but Sasuke had to duck his chin a bit to avoid knocking the 'ceiling.' When he finally settled comfortably, he was in disturbingly close proximity to someone who'd gleefully stabbed him with a senbon at the age of four, but her clear discomfort with the situation was worth it.

"You know, Loser," he drawled pleasantly, "I find that people are generally more successful at hiding when they make sure that their feet are completely pulled in _under_ the tablecloth.

"Shut up, Ass-turd," came the expected response.

But something felt off about it, it lacked the passion that her vitriol normally carried.

He blinked and craned forward to better study her. She was wearing an expensive looking deep red yukata with gold and white embroidery. Her fingers clenched tightly on the mask in her lap, and her hair, normally pulled back into pigtails, had been twisted into an elaborate up do. Sasuke considered himself a connoisseur of female beauty, having had a few of them coveting his own masculine equivalent in the course of his life, and would confess that one thing he could never honestly accuse the Loser of being was ugly. On nights like tonight, when she put some effort into her appearance, she could be quite physically stunning. A strange scent tickled his nose. Sasuke's sense of smell was nowhere near as good as Hatake's, but he suddenly realized just how powerful the smell of alcohol was in the small hidey-hole. A quick glance to the other side of the girl revealed six drained bottles of saké and an empty cardboard carton.

His eyes widened, "Did you drink all that?"

"Shh!" Naruto reached over and pressed a finger firmly to his lips.

"The object of the game is not to be found, Ass-turd." Dark blue eyes were hard in the dim light. "Out me and I will end you," said the girl, with a severity that would have been scary if the statement wasn't followed by a hiccough.

Suddenly the girl groaned and leaned forward, resting her forehead against Sasuke's chest, hand falling from his face to his shoulder.

"Are you going to throw up?" Sasuke whispered harshly, pushing the girl away in alarm.

"No," snorted Naruto, straightening. "I'm an Uzumaki," she sniffed, "we have amazing toler—holler—we hold our liquor good."

Sasuke stared at the girl and then looked down at his riceballs. He picked one up and held it out, "You should probably eat one of these."

"Nah," Naruto waved her hand, "I'm fine, I had some ramen."

"Loser." Sasuke barked softly, pinning the girl with a glare. "Eat. The. God. Damn. Riceball."

Naruto blinked. "Ok, geesh," she reached forward and took the riceball. She leaned back against the wall and slowly ate. Sasuke took up the other one and finished it off himself, feeling slightly bizarre at the companionable silence that existed while they each finished their meals. As Sasuke licked the last of the rice from his fingers, (His mother would be horrified at his manners, but there was no way in hell that Sasuke at his sloppiest could lose in the manners department when compared with the Loser) he noticed the girl subtly coveting his sake. He finished the last of it one gulp, putting an end to that issue.

"Greedy," muttered Naruto, no real venom behind the word.

"You had enough already," snorted Sasuke, waving his hand toward the mess of bottles on her other side. He didn't know how the girl was still sitting up and mostly coherent. He'd never seen anyone have that much alcohol in one sitting.

"Probably," admitted the blonde, letting her head fall back against the wall with a sad sigh.

Sasuke didn't know what to do with the somber camaraderie they'd somehow developed, much more used to an exchange of increasingly personal insults which usually resulted in the rest of their peers intervening and pulling the two back from the precipice of slitting the other's throat. Half of Sasuke's black-eyes in childhood had been directly attributable to his current companion's right hook, and Sasuke knew that he'd sent the girl home with a broken arm at least three times during Academy spars, despite the fact that the injury always healed up within two or three days.

"What's that supposed to be anyway," he asked, gesturing to the mask in her hands for lack of anything else to say.

Naruto looked at him blankly, then held the mask up to her face. A familiar garish pattern appeared, only orange instead of brown, quite similar to Hatake's except—

"Meow," went Naruto dryly.

"A cat?" Sasuke asked dubiously, "hardly fitting."

"Kashi-nii's idea of a joke, I think," said Naruto, taking it down from her face and setting it back in her lap, tracing the details idly with one finger. "Better than an owl."

"A hawk," said Sasuke stiffly, "My mother picked it out for me."

"Oh," said Naruto, tone wavering oddly between apathy and apology. They sat quietly for a few more minutes. "Are you going to leave," the blonde asked finally, slitted blue eyes turning to watch him curiously.

Sasuke considered her, "Tired of my company already, Loser?"

"You look miserable," was all Naruto said, and Sasuke chose not to respond to that, instead closing his eyes and leaning his own head back against the wall.

"We can be miserable together then," Naruto stated calmly. He felt her weight shift next to him, getting more comfortable in the small, cramped space under the table, pulling her knees up to her chest. This gave Sasuke the room to relax his own legs a bit, and he subsequently settled into a cross legged position.

"Let's make a deal," Naruto said softly. "I tell you why I'm miserable, you tell me why you're miserable, and we'll be miserable together here, but when we leave we promise to stop being miserable and go back to hating each other's guts the next time we see one another."

Sasuke considered the offer for a moment, the alcohol kicking in, making him feel relaxed and unusually at peace with the idea. "Ok."

"But we can't ever," Naruto fidgeted a bit, "we can't ever _tell_ anyone else about what we say, right?"

Sasuke blinked behind his mask, "Alright?"

Naruto leaned over him, "Pinky swear?" She said seriously holding up her smallest finger.

Sasuke laughed softly, "You're such a Loser, I'm not going to _pink—_ Ow!"

Sasuke hissed as the nails of Naruto's free hand dug into his hip.

"Pinky swear," repeated the blond again, smiling sweetly.

"Alright, alright!" Sasuke grudgingly held out his own smallest finger and hooked it with hers. "No talking about what we talk about tonight. Promise," he muttered.

"Ever." Naruto said, nodding.

"Ever." Sasuke agreed, nodding back.

"Good," Naruto dropped back against the wall again.

She was silent for a few minutes, Sasuke was beginning to think that she'd fallen asleep and was starting to ponder if it would be better to leave her there or become known as that one sorry idiot who dragged the Hokage's daughter, passed out in an alcohol-induced stupor, to Hatake Kakashi.

"My parents want me to marry Gaara."

Sasuke blinked, slowly coming out of the nice semi-sleepy state of mind that he'd been enjoying. "What?"

"For the treaty," Naruto elaborated, sounding stressed, "To reaffirm our alliance with Suna, make it stronger, they want me to marry Gaara."

"Oh," Sasuke said, not knowing what else to say. He thought about the issue for a minute. That was certainly one way to strengthen ties with the foreign village. He wondered what his father thought about it. Sasuke was aware of politics to a certain extent, but as it was unlikely that he'd ever lead the Clan, it wasn't a topic that his father spent a lot of time discussing with Sasuke. _Not like he does with Itachi_ , Sasuke thought with a pang of hastily stifled resentment. He pushed his hand under his mask and rubbed at his eyes. He wished he knew what Itachi thought about the suggestion. But in the meantime, "What do you think about it?"

"Gaara is my friend," recited Naruto, sounding like she'd said the phrase a hundred times that day. It felt like she was going to end it there, leave it at that, but then she laid her head against his shoulder and admitted in a very small voice. "But he's like my brother. I don't want to marry him. It'd be like marrying Kakashi nii-san."

_Oh God,_ Sasuke blanched, _That would be a nightmare._

Sasuke knew that if he wasn't tired, and missing Sakura, and maybe a little drunk, he would have shrugged the girl off of him in an instant. But as matters stood, he was tired. It had been a long day and he had just realized that he'd disappointed his brother, which he hated doing. And he did miss the physical affection of his girlfriend, because his family really wasn't into hugs and reassuring touches, not the kinds he found he enjoyed when he started dating (and not that he wanted _all_ those affections from his family, but it would be nice if he could count on his family for a little more than a hug once a week from his mother), and he could practically feel the confusion and misery radiating off the other girl.

And he might have been a very little bit drunk. Not that this was ever a good excuse for anything.

"I don't want to disappoint my parents," said Naruto, in the smallest voice yet.

He let her head stay on his shoulder.

"I'm a bad brother," he blurted out, and then stiffened, surprised he'd actually said the words out loud.

Naruto was limp against his shoulder, offering him the same courtesy he'd given her upon hearing her own admission. "Why do you say that?"

Sasuke clasped his hands together in his lap, examining his fingernails. "I've been so caught up in my relationship with Sakura that I haven't been paying any attention to him, or to how he's doing, or to what he's trying to teach me." Sasuke bowed his head, "I think he thinks that I'm foolish."

Naruto snorted against his arm. "He's been telling you that since the first time I met you, I think."

"It's more like now he thinks I'm stupid, or hopeless." It felt painful to say that out loud.

"No," murmured Naruto eventually, "He just doesn't understand you. I bet he's like my nii-san, not too into the social stuff and not able to really understand why we need it."

Sasuke gave a non-committal grunt.

"No, really," Naruto protested, "My Mom explained it to me once, she said that nii-san was an introvert and being around people tired him out, but she and I are extroverts and being around people just gives us more energy." She peered up at Sasuke, head still against his arm, trying to determine his expression through the mask, "I bet your nii-san is an introvert, like mine, and you're not as much an extrovert as I am, but you're somewhere in the middle."

She tilted her head down again, "He just doesn't understand that you need to be with people to be happy, because he doesn't, not in the same way. You'll both figure out how to deal with it eventually. He'll figure out how much time you need to spend with others, and you'll find a better balance at giving others attention and working with him."

Sasuke's throat closed up, he hadn't thought of it that way before, _Since when did Loser actually start saying almost-smart things._

"But," continued Naruto, "since you brought up Sakura—"

Sasuke tensed, he didn't want to discuss his ex with her best-friend (the subject of half of their fights).

"No, no, no, no," soothed Naruto clinging to his bicep as he tried to pull away, dragging him back down. "Just sit for a minute, and listen, and I'll never bring it up again and we'll never mention we talked about it to anyone ever."

Sasuke settled back down mutinously, wondering briefly if this had all been a trap leading up to this moment, before discarding that idea and deciding it wasn't possible for Loser to think up something that complex.

Naruto twisted her body so that she was facing him. It brought them even closer, but Sasuke checked the desire to push her away.

"It's just," blue eyes peered up at him earnestly, "You've gotta let her go, you were so bad for each other, you were only hurting yourselves and driving everybody else crazy."

"What do you know about it?" Sasuke snarled, "Don't talk to me about my relationships."

Naruto pressed a firm palm to his chest, frowning, "I know a lot about it, Ass-turd. You may not talk about your relationships to other guys, but girls share _everything_."

Sasuke really didn't like the knowing emphasis she placed on that last word.

"Listen," Naruto insisted, "I know you think you were in love with her, but you weren't. And she didn't love you either."

She held a finger up to his lips to silence him, sensing the protests that Sasuke wanted to spew forth. "What you each loved was this," Naruto waved her hand to the side in a vague manner, "this _idealized_ version of each other."

"No," Naruto rolled her eyes and actually pinched Sasuke's lips shut.

He glared darkly at the rude gesture.

"Trust me," intoned Naruto, "I had to hear all about it, every day, for years. It was always her complaining about you expecting her to be perfect, to be the smartest, to think about what you needed and have it ready before you ever mentioned it to her, to wait on you, to always look put together, to never be angry, to be an exceptional cook, to know how to darn socks, etcetera, etcetera," drawled Naruto.

"But Sakura is all those things," protested Sasuke, finally able to get in a word edgewise.

"No, no she's not," laughed the blonde, falling forward a bit, having to catch her balance by laying a steadying hand against Sasuke's chest. "Sakura is smart, but she's not a genius. She just works harder than anyone else to be at the top. And Sakura's nice in public, but for every sweet thing she says she's keeping up a cynical inner commentary of criticism about someone. And she's late all the time 'cuz she works too hard and gets exhausted and oversleeps. And she is always, always angry about something, 'cuz that's what makes her work hard. And she wants whoever she winds up with to think she's just as beautiful in sweats as a summer yukata. And she doesn't want to be a stay at home mom and retire from being a kunoichi young just to have babies, she just couldn't find a way to tell you." Naruto gave him a steady look, "And I love Sakura because she's all these things, but you don't, because you never really got to know the _real_ her, you just wanted the potential, ideal version of what she could be."

Sasuke was silent, struggling to merge his perception of Sakura with everything that the Loser had told him. Things he really hadn't known, but the Loser seemed so sincere and confident in her opinion that he was finding it hard to doubt the veracity of her overall assessment.

"And she did the same thing with you, Ass-turd," Naruto said, eyes softening just a bit, realizing how abrupt and unwelcome this epiphany was to the boy. "She likes the idea of being with a polished clan heir, but really she wants someone she can punch to death in public and boss around who'll run and do her bidding and take care of her because she's too busy to take care of herself half the time. She wants to be with someone who makes her the center of their universe, but you can't ever do that because of your Clan and she can't understand that because she doesn't have a Clan. She loved the idea that you were some misunderstood prince, but you're not misunderstood, your family understands you just fine, they're just giving you some room to grow up, same as mine."

"So see," Naruto said with a sigh, apparently winding down and patting his shoulder gently. "You were both just driving each other, and in turn all your friends and family, all kinds of shitty-crazy because you didn't really want to be with the other person. Next time, figure out what a girl is really like and what she wants for herself, and if that can work with what you want, before you decide that you're in love with her. Ok?" She settled back down against his side as Sasuke struggled for words. Naruto felt like she'd done the world a great humanitarian service for the day. She let Sasuke come to terms with her words in his own time.

Eventually, he broke the silence. "I'm never going to be able to find a girl as wonderful as Sakura."

"Oh for the love of -!" Naruto pushed herself up, suddenly feeling a spike of anger at the mule-headed insistence of the boy beside her. She crossed her arms under her chest, "Just tell me," she said testily, eyes flashing, "what's so great about Sakura? Huh?"

Sasuke morosely glared at the floor. "She's amazing."

"Yes." Naruto agreed, "She is, but she's not the only fish in the sea, and she's not the one for you. So tell me, what is it you think that's so irreplaceable about my best friend? Because I know her inside and out, and while she's absolutely irreplaceable for what she means to _me,_ I bet I can find someone else who is better at the things she meant for _you._ "

Sasuke pursed his lips _in a pout_ and Naruto saw red. Suddenly, she was straddling his lap, the added height putting them eye level with one another. Startled, Sasuke's hands reflexively went to the small of her back, to hold her steady, while she yanked the feathery mask off with one jerk of her arm, bringing her hands up to cup Sasuke's face and force him to look her in the eyes.

"Tell me _Sasuke-kun_ , just what is so special about Sakura?"

There was a beautiful teenage girl in his lap with the most firey blue eyes he'd ever seen, and Sasuke hoped no sane person would hold it against him if he admitted he was finding it hard to string coherent thoughts together. _Nii-san would._ And wasn't that thought like a bucket of cold water? He forced his hands down to the ground, digging them into the dirt floor and bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, the pain distracting him so he could tear his eyes away from Naruto's and focus on the red tablecloth he could see over her shoulder.

He tried hard to come up with an answer. He had loved Sakura, it shouldn't be that hard. What did he like about the girl? "She was a ninja." _Oh, brilliant answer, Sasuke._ He mentally kicked himself for the brilliance of his answer.

"I'm a ninja," responded Naruto briskly, hands falling to his shoulders.

"She was smart."

"I'm smart, not book-smart," admitted the blonde honestly, "but I'm fight-smart. I even surprise nii-san in battle some times." Her grip on his shoulders tightened.

Sasuke took a deep breath and stretched his palms flat on the floor, anchoring himself by feeling the earth.

"She had passion—"

Naruto flat out laughed, loud and mocking, not seeming to care that they had been trying to be quiet before this moment. "Oh, _Sasuke—_

_Was she purring? Oh God, she was purring, that was cheating,_ Sasuke knew that his heartbeat was picking up and he could feel the flush that was creeping up his collarbone.

The fingertips of her right hand slipped under his yukata, where the cloth met the pulse point of his neck, and that was enough of a distraction for his eyes to flick away from the tablecloth to see what she was doing, and looking up again he got caught in her gaze—her beautiful, incomparably blue eyes, all sparkling mischievously, apparently delighted with the reactions she was eliciting.

She raised her left hand, placing the back of her palm against his cheek and dragging it down as she spoke, "There is _no one_ more passionate than an Uzumaki, you ass." Her eye-lids lowered halfway, full lashes partially obscuring the pretty orbs, and Sasuke wanted more than anything to see them bright and open and wide.

He wouldn't. He wouldn't. He bit his lip once more, using every ounce of self-control he had not to push his head forward the inch it would take for their lips to collide, for her eyes to startle back open in delight again. _This was the Loser,_ he reminded himself. He'd spent half his life in close contact with her, kicking and biting and punching and snarling and _that should not be turning me on even_ _more!_

Naruto leaned her forehead against his own and he closed his eyes tight. "Tell me more about Sakura," he felt her whisper against his ear.

"Who?" He asked, dazed, belatedly realizing that his hands were traitors, as they'd returned to their position around her waist. He mentally cursed the fact that she wasn't wearing her usual uniform, because if she had, he'd be feeling skin right now. _Wait, it's a good thing I can't feel skin right now. Everyone should keep their clothes on in this scenario_ , he valiantly tried to remind himself.

His breath hitched as he felt Naruto fall onto him, laughing, resting most of her weight against him. He could feel the curves of her chest against his own, feel the physical rise and fall of each breath taken by her body—

"Sakura," Naruto repeated, the warmth of the air as she spoke tickling his cheek.

Sasuke blinked, eyes focusing back on the tablecloth, "She had pretty hair," was all he managed to get out from his dry throat. _She had pretty hair? What was wrong with him?_ He licked his lips and bit back a groan as Naruto pulled away from him ever so slightly, turning sad blue-puppy eyes on him. "You don't like my hair," she murmured, and he couldn't look away again, could feel her left hand come up to card fingers gently through his own hair, nails lightly, lightly scraping against his scalp. She removed her other hand from where it had been tracing the line of his collar bone under his yukata, reaching up to her touch the golden crown on her head. In a few, swift movements the carefully gathered golden tresses were falling gracefully down her back. Down, down, down, like something seen in a movie—

_This is an illusion, it's a genjutsu_. Sasuke opened eyes that swirled blood red, but it only made everything more real, more solid. _No. This is her._ _I've just lost my mind,_ his thoughts were becoming a bit hysterical, but he thought that was permissible when Naruto was pushing her hand back under his yukata, only more boldly, reaching further until she could firmly grip his bare shoulder. She bent down to nuzzle her head into the junction of his neck, pressing a chaste kiss to his skin with a soft, "this could be fun."

"No," Sasuke groaned, not quite sure where the protest was coming from, but refusing to look down at the girl. Which is maybe what he should have been doing, because it would have prevented her from continuing to press chaste kisses up and down his jaw. Certainly he shouldn't have raised his head to give her better access, which is what was actually happening.

"Why not?" Naruto's voice was light and airy, and it took several moments for Sasuke to remember himself enough to answer, especially when Naruto's left hand curled around his neck, giving her the leverage she needed to press herself flat against him.

"Our parents," he managed to mumble. And maybe he should just go ahead and chop off his hands, because he just noticed that his right was cradling the back of Naruto's head, fingers threading through the beautiful mass that he'd always wanted to touch, but had never been quite brave enough to do so knowing how well Hatake could aim a kunai. He was pleasantly surprised to find it was just as soft, smelled just as nice, as he had imagined. Meanwhile, his other hand- _Stop that!_ Sasuke forced the hand to halt, centimeters away from being able to look Hatake in the eye and honestly swear that he'd never felt up the Hokage's daughter.

As if she could read his thoughts, she laughed into his neck. And he liked that, he realized, the laughter, not mocking, but playful. Fun. Alive. And then he hissed, because that kiss against his neck wasn't so chaste anymore, _and how is her heart not racing?_ Sasuke's felt like it was about to burst through his throat.

"You want this," soft lips kissed the words into his skin, and he realized that she had loosened his yukata to the point where it was falling off his shoulders, "I want this, I promise," fingers traced the nape of his neck in a gentle caress, the pressure slowly increasing over time in a pleasant build. "Even if you're still an ass," she kissed the corner of his mouth, and the words brought him back to reality in a rush.

He swallowed, and brought the hand below her rib cage to her chest to push her back a bit, and give him air to breathe, room to think. Only that plan backfired a bit when he realized that he couldn't stop staring at his own hand, couldn't stop feeling its location, firmly planted between two breasts. And he couldn't bring himself to let go of the back of her head either, which wasn't helping, and was probably sending the girl mixed messages. Unavoidable, since not even Sasuke was certain what message he was trying to send at the moment.

So he closed his eyes, fell back on the oldest argument in the book, "My father—"

She cut him off by pressing a finger to his lips. It burned and he opened his dark eyes, gazing into her heavily lidded ones. Sleepy blue, deep, searching, wanting. "Do you always do what your daddy tells you?" She covered the large hand pressed against her chest with a smaller one of her own.

_Well, when you put it like that_ , he mentally laughed at her appeal to his inner rebellious teenager. "No," he murmured. And he didn't. Itachi had made sure he learned that lesson many years ago. The finger pressing against his lips let up. He kissed it, nipped the tip of it before she pulled it back, and he gave the girl the first real smile he'd ever given her.

Naruto smiled back, and it was beautiful. And then she moved the hand pressing against her chest over. Not away. And Sasuke's mind went blank for a minute with the knowledge that he was right where he was trying so hard not to be just a minute ago. But then she was nibbling his ear gently, and he was back. "Do you trust me?"

"No," he snorted, the response automatic.

He was rewarded with a pleasant laugh, rather than the offended swat he expected.

A bite on the ear, harder. "Good."

-A strange pull and he was falling backward, the wall was gone, but he fell into sheets, pillows, a mattress.

"Where?" He managed to get out, not able to finish the thought completely because Naruto had fallen too, stretched out on top of him, and his mind was busy cataloguing all the physical sensations this new position brought. But that wasn't a regular shunshin and he wanted to know—

"My room," came the breathy response, and he could finally tell that her heart was beating as fast as his own, because he'd gotten a hand underneath her own yukata and pressed it there flat against her rib cage, just under the soft curve of her breast, further progress thwarted by yet another layer of clothing.

"Not telling," she finally managed to get out in response to the second part of his question, grinning brightly, face flushed, looking feverish. He moved his hand with purpose and she let out a delighted squeal, another laugh. But he decided that figuring out what she'd done could wait when he caught sight of the pale tangerine of her bra strap, striking against the smooth tan skin of her shoulder.

"Just a sec'," she pulled away from him with a gasp, and he didn't quite manage to contain the whine that left him when she leaned across the bed, further from him, to press her fingers against an ornate design on her nightstand. His noise turned into one of confusion when she activated what he belatedly recognized as a seal, a pulse of chakra flowing through the room.

His Sharingan whirled on reflexively, and he looked around, amazed at the complex web of chakra seal-work cocooning the room, _fascinating_. It was hard to tell where one seal ended and another begin, but he supposed that was what passed for normal in the household of seal masters. That train of thought faded two seconds after he found his lap full of eager, semi-dressed, beautiful girl. He closed his eyes, pressing his lips against her own properly for the first time. He savored the sweet taste, pulling back when he was out of breath and pressing his lips to the corner of her mouth. He turned off the Sharingan before opening his eyes back up, knowing that it unnerved some partners and not wanting to use it without asking permission, until the other person fully understood what a lasting memory they would be giving. This wasn't the time for that.

Naruto arched her back as Sasuke took his turn pressing kisses down her jaw, not stopping when he got to the junction of her neck, continuing lower, his hands pressed against her shoulder blades keeping her from pulling away. "The seal," she waved her arm, trying to stutter out an explanation for her actions, wanting him to understand, "it messes with my cousin-she's chakra sensitive, and it'll keep nii-san's nose..."

_Oh,_ Sasuke groaned against the top of her breast, understanding enough from the disjointed stammering. He was grateful that she'd thought of that but _really_ —"New rule:," he panted, "no one can say the word 'nii-san' in bed." He'd rather not think about how his head was going to most likely wind up on a pike in the morning, thank you very much.

Naruto's laugh was loud and lovely, her hands running playfully through his hair, her _longlong_ legs tightening around his waist, "But Sasuke, if that's the rule, what are you ever going to be able to say?"

Sasuke looked at her in a strange sort-of fond, exasperated bewilderment, "Why are you still talking?" And he bent his head again, determined to find a way to stop _that_ , and when she finally gasped inarticulately, he grinned in victory.


	2. Act II

**Act II. Prologue.**

Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,  
And young affection gapes to be his heir;  
That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,  
With tender Naruto match'd, is now not fair.  
Now Sasuke is beloved and loves again,  
Alike betwitched by the charm of looks,  
But to his foe supposed he must complain,  
And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:  
Being held a foe, he may not have access  
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;  
And she as much in love, her means much less  
To meet her new-beloved any where:  
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet  
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

Right.

* * *

Act II. Scene I.

"No, I'm sorry Itachi-sama, I didn't see him at all last night and he's not stopped by this morning," Uchiha Uruchi squinted in concern at the young man who'd stepped inside her senbei shop. "Should I let you know if I see him dear?" The elderly woman patted her hands absently on her apron, dusting the wheat flour from her fingers.

Itachi blinked slowly, unsurprised by the lack of information. Of course Sasuke would disappear in a sulk after their exchange the prior night and refuse to come home. The pinched look on his mother's face when she shook Itachi awake at dawn alluded to a sleepless night spent pacing the kitchen, waiting for his foolish little brother to stumble home. Consequently, this meant Father had been in a foul, muttering mood that morning as well, and for the sake of peace in the household, Itachi had obligingly taken to the streets of the compound to search for his errant sibling.

It was fairly early still, and with the festival the night before, the usual businesses were opening late and fewer people were wandering the streets. Itachi had been asking a few of Sasuke's favorite vendors if he'd stopped by their stalls the night before, and if they remembered what company he'd been keeping. While Itachi had gained several bags of experimental wares for "that wonderful mother of yours," he hadn't garnered any information which would help pinpoint his foolish brother's whereabouts.

He tilted his head slightly in a bow, "Thank you Obasan, but that's not necc—"

"Eh, eh, what's this now?" Uchiha Teyaki popped his head out of the back of the shop, unintentionally speaking much too loudly for the small space on account of his failing hearing. "That brother of yours run off again?" The feeble looking man braced his hands on his hips and smiled good-naturedly at his wife and visitor.

Itachi winced, "He's not 'run off.' I'm sure he simply forgot to tell our mother he was going home with friends."

That was a lie. Sasuke was friendly with many of his peers, but he didn't really have "friends" his age, either among the clan or the general shinobi or civilian population. Not the traditional type of friend, those of the same gender in which he could confide and share experiences. Of, course, Itachi didn't have those either, nothing was wrong with that. What Sasusuke did have though, was an adoring mob of female 'friends' whose affections he toyed with on a regular basis. Itachi had practically given his approval for Sasuke to find such entertainment for the night, and now Itachi was having to face the consequences of those ill-advised words.

Uruchi clucked in the fatigued manner that only women who suffered through rearing several sons mastered and picked a wooden spoon off of the counter, "Your Mother ought to be concerned, what with foreigners in town it's only a matter of time before someone gets pounced on loses their eyeballs."

Itachi kept his face expressionless, but internally sighed. Konoha was perfectly safe and for the Suna-nin to make such a move would be tantamount to suicide, but with the older Uchiha generation, everything always boiled down to someone being after the clan's eyes.

Teyaki sniffed dismissively, "Nonsense, nonsense, that 'uns just a hooligan out havin' a time of it." He sounded inexplicably proud.

Itachi smothered his grimace and tightened his grip on the bag of vegetables in his arms, a gift from a distant relative two stops prior.

Teyaki's wife sniffed and punctuated her words by waving her kitchen utensil under her spouse's nose, "Mark my words, he better watch those pretty eyes of his or they'll wind up in a jar—"

"Oh, are nefarious plans afoot, Obasan?" A firm hand clamped down on Itachi's shoulder and the taciturn young man found his personal space invaded by his exceptionally nosy cousin. Shisui grinned charmingly up at the shopkeepers.

Uruchi scowled at the newcomer and set her spoon down with a heavy clunk on the counter. "Young Sasuke-kun is missing, not that a miscreant like you would spare any time or thought for the matter."

"Oh, poor Sasuke-kun," cooed Shisui, batting his eyes in mock sorrow, "we best head out and look for the boy right away, who knows what kind of trouble that helpless little kid could get into." He gave a dramatic sigh as he hooked arms with Itachi and nudged the other man toward the door. "It's not like he's inherited superior genetics or been trained his entire life by an elite ninja of the village or—"

"Oh, stop it you," Uruchi threw her hands in the air, "wait, wait, Itachi-sama, before you leave, take a bag of these senbei, they're a new recipe I want you to try—"

"Ah, not again dear," huffed Teyaki, crossing his arms and shaking his head, leaning against the counter. "You nag me about wastin' money, but every time I turn around you're givin' food away for free!"

Itachi held his hands up to ward off the kind sentiment, "That's completely unnecessary, Obasan, I'm not hungry at all—"

"I am," Shisui blurted, unabashed, eyeing the woman's brown bag with interest.

"These aren't for you," snapped Uruchi, forcing her bag of senbei into Itachi's arms, "and you can't just eat vegetables, I know that bag is from Ami-san, you're far too thin for that, you need more meat on your bones."

"They're just for my family," protested Itachi, struggling to redistribute the weight of the bags in his arm with Shisui acting as a personal leech.

"Then you can take the crackers, back to that dear mother of yours," Insisted Uruchi, swatting her mumbling husband upside the head. "Hush that, the boy's far too skinny and you know it."

Teyaki sighed and waved the two young men away from his shop.

Shisui "rescued" the bag of senbei from Itachi and liberated some of the crackers happily, "I love how everyone knows that Aunt Mikoto is too polite to ever refuse a gift." He hummed happily as he consumed Itachi's rejected food. "'Swheresf'lsh'ttle'ther," said Shisui around a mouthful of food.

Itachi raised an eyebrow at his companion, watching the crumbs fall from the man's mouth and catch on his police uniform. He sniffed and looked away, taking a left onto a road which led outside the compound.

Shisui rolled his eyes and swallowed his cracker. "I said," he continued with exaggerated enunciation, licking crumbs from his fingers, "where is Foolish Little Brother this morning, then?"

The younger ninja pursed his lips, "Out."

Shisui scrunched his nose, "and without your express permission, how rude!"

Itachi shifted the remaining bag in his arms, "He didn't let anyone know he wasn't coming home last night. Mother is worried."

"Ah," Shisui nodded knowingly, "which means Fugaku-sama is in a pissy mood, which means everyone at work will be developing ulcers and most likely I'll mouth off to the wrong person, drag you into it, and we'll both wind up scrubbing coffee stains out of the break room floor until Foolish Little Brother is safely tucked in bed again, is that it?"

"More or less," agreed Itachi, nodding his head in acknowledgment to a group of older men playing shōgi under the aging awning of an apartment building. The gravel crunched under their feet as the two ambled forward.

"Your mother does remember that Foolish Little Brother is what, seventeen now?" Shisui licked his fingers as he tried to check his math in his head.

"sixteen," corrected Itachi gently, "and I do not believe it would matter to her if he was 20."

Shisui grunted, "The perks and pains of being the baby, I suppose." He stuck his hands in his pockets and kicked at the gravel idly.

Itachi made no comment.

"So," drawled the elder of the two, "will we be dragging him from the bed of his latest conquest then? Because I missed out on that last time and I hear it was quite entertaining."

Itachi grunted dismissively. He knew Sasuke was desperate to develop a reputation in the clan, but the one the boy was actually earning left many things to be desired.

"Who is the latest conquest?" Shisui pondered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "I thought he was dating that medic-nin with the funny hair? What's her name? Fauna? Flora? Pinkie-pie?"

"Sakura-san," corrected Itachi. He'd been treated by the girl a few times after missions, and but for her taste in romantic partners, had found her to be an unusually intelligent and very capable individual. He had no idea what she saw in his sibling.

"Oh, right. Sakura-san," Shisui sounded out the name carefully, as if savoring the name of his prey. "Foolish Little Brother," crowed Shisui, loudly, "Come out Foolish Little Brother, you've had all night with your darling Sakura-chan," Shisui imitated some of Sasuke's more sensational lovelorn sighs, "I know she has the most beautiful eyes, the most shiny hair, the most melodic voice," he pressed the back of his palm to his head and playfully collapsed onto Itachi, who shrugged him off and murmured an apology to the grandmother giving them the stink-eye as she watered the flowers in her window box.

"If he hears you say those things he'll be angry," Itachi said calmly, attempting to restore Shisui to an appropriate distance.

"Eh," shrugged Shisui, "It's only the same things he says every time I see him. So where is the abode of Sasuke's latest sweetheart? Perhaps we should wake the lovers with a rousing serenade."

Itachi eyed him warily. "We will not be harassing Haruno-san."

Shisui grinned roguishly. "Oh, it's Haruno-san, now is it? It's a pity to be so formal with someone whose bedroom we're about to crash."

"We will not be crashing into anyone's bedroom," said Itachi stiffly, after all, he hadn't forgotten who'd trained the girl. "Besides, I highly doubt my brother is in Haruno-san's company, from what I could determine from his most recent lamentations, she has spurned his affections and is adamantly refusing to rekindle the relationship."

Shisui barked a laugh, "Seriously? Wait," Shisui furrowed his brow, "Is this why my mother has been whining that her garden looks ratty? Has he been stealing flowers to try and coax himself into Pinky-pie's pants?"

Itachi paused at a crossroad, trying to remember if he was supposed to turn right or left to get to Haruno's residence. He doubted the boy was there, but it couldn't hurt to check, hopefully she'd at least seen his brother at the festival. Sasuke hadn't sounded like he was done dogging her steps and begging for her attention. It was probably to the right— He'd accompanied Sasuke to the place on a few occasions, but he hadn't been paying attention—

"Really?" Shisui complained, running a hand through his hair. "I swear Foolish Little Brother owes me a few hours of yardwork."

Better to simply turn right and channel Shisui's current burst of motivation into actual productivity, Itachi decided, steering them down the road and pulling a rambling Shisui out of the way of a young girl with Inuzuka facial markings trying to herd a trio of large dogs in the direction of the training fields.

"I'm so glad you're the one stuck with a Foolish Little Brother," Shisui continued to prattle, "I probably would have murdered all of mine several times over by now."

XXX

It was awfully warm, almost uncomfortably warm with how the sunlight was heating the comforter. Sasuke grimaced and pressed his cheek firmly into the pillow. Mother didn't usually let him sleep this late, so he wasn't in any hurry to wake up before he absolutely had to do so. Unfortunately his body seemed to be on a different page than his mind, and his return to consciousness continued, along with the awareness that the temperature was high because there was another body tucked against his under all these covers, clinging to him as if he was a favorite stuffed toy.

Sasuke tried and failed to open his eyes. Too much light, and he had a headache. _Surely I didn't drink that much last night_? He rolled over, from his side to his back, and his bed partner whined at the change in position. Sasuke held up a hand to rub at his face and shield his eyes from the bright light as the slighter body next to his squirmed to get comfy, leaving no doubt in Sasuke's mind that his companion was female as the soft curves of the girl's breasts pressed against his side. Her head knocked roughly against his chin and he let out a low grunt as he was assaulted with the contrasting scents of alcohol, some fruity shampoo, and…ramen?

Sasuke's eyes shot open and he popped up in bed with a yelp, dislodging the sleeping girl using him as her pillow. "Why are you—I mean we—I mean," Sasuke gestured about the bedroom as he inarticulately stuttered, his startled gaze taking in his surroundings for the first time. He quickly processed the bright orange and blue décor of the room, highlighted by the morning sun filtering in through opaque yellow curtains which covered some sliding glass doors with a view of a balcony and the woods.

Naruto sat up and ran her fingers through her hair, further tangling the mussed mess. She blinked sleepily back at the boy in her bed. Her free hand rubbed at her eyes and she yawned, "What's wrong?"

The Uchiha's eyes snapped back to her, cheeks immediately turning pink, voice high with shock and stress, "Loser, you've got no –" he looked down, grabbed a fluffy orange pillow to cover his lap, and began to take on the color of his favorite food, jaw clenching. _Oh god,_ Sasuke thought frantically as the events of the prior night came crashing to the forefront of his mind, _Oh god, I am in so much trouble. With my mother, with Itachi, with Sakura, with my mother, with Hatake, with the Hokage, my mother—_

Naruto's blue eyes quickly lost their sleepy sheen and gained the alert, intense character that they normally possessed as she cast her gaze upon her bedmate. She grinned, looking more predatory than usual with her whisker marked cheeks, and slowly leaned forward, pressing her arms across the bed in a stretch and rolling her shoulders back before scooting the foot or so across the bed spread until she was right next to him.

Sasuke's brain stopped functioning, other than the vaguest flicker of the notion that he should be cursing his teenage hormones and poor lack of self-control. He watched the girl advance with wide dark eyes.

"You didn't mind the lack of clothing last night," Naruto spoke, batting her eyes in a mocking manner as she wiggled herself into a sideways sitting position across the pillow on top of Sasuke's lap, swinging her arms around his neck to steady herself. "In fact, you were quite insistent on removing them if I'm remembering—"

Somebody made an embarrassing gurgle (Sasuke was sure such a sound couldn't come from him) and Naruto's eyes widened cheerfully in response, she laughed and cuddled closer as Sasuke tensed up, feeling like he should probably toss her across the room except that his mother had told him bodily tossing someone in their own home really wasn't polite— She pressed her chest against his and her lips against his ear.

"You know Ass-turd, you weren't _that_ bad and I wouldn't—"

Several solid thuds against Naruto's bedroom door drew the girl's attention away from Sasuke and he never got to hear what she wouldn't.

"Naruto," came a male voice, "is someone in there with you?"

Sasuke was slower to respond to the sound, mind quite oblivious to anything outside a two foot radius of his body at that instant, but his heart leapt into his throat when he registered just to whom that particular voice belonged.

"No," the girl yelled back at the door, from next to Sasuke's eardrum. "But don't come in, I'm naked!"

The Uchiha dropped the screeching girl to clasp a hand to his ringing ear and found himself being pushed by forceful tan limbs to the edge of the bed. He didn't catch what Hatake Kakashi yelled back in response, as Naruto was busy untangling them both from the sheets and trying to shove Sasuke under the bed, if he was interpreting her nonverbal gestures correctly.

"Hide," hissed the blonde in a low, urgent tone and Sasuke hastily crawled under the foot gap between the bed and the floor, batting away the dust ruffle and hoping that Loser had cleaner housekeeping habits than he'd previously predicted.

Naruto straightened, grabbed the sheet, and quickly sprawled on top of the bed, rearranging some pillows. "I said don't come in, I'm busy!" She howled at the door, sounding fussy and bouncing with energy.

Sasuke gave an "oof" as the bed gave a bit with the bounce and the beams dug into his back. He poked his head, hair now covered in dust, out from under the bed. "Stop that," he hissed, turning on his back so he could better see the blonde.

Naruto glared and pushed his head back under the bed with a foot, "shut up!"

Sasuke struggled to push Naruto's toes away from his face with one hand (as the other was pinned under the bed). He was in the midst of snarling back an answer when he sneezed.

"Naruto?" Kakashi's concerned inquiry carried clearly through the wood.

The door squeaked open and Sasuke was grateful he was on the side of the bed not visible from the door. He inched fully under the protecting furniture. Being found naked in the Hokage's only daughter's room by Hatake Kakashi was not how he expected to start any day of his life. It would also probably be the last start to a day of his life, so he tried to regulate his breathing as much as possible, pressing his tongue to the tip of his mouth to ward off oncoming sneezes.

"Naru—clothes!" Came the horrified, squawk/squeak from Hatake, followed by the sound of several pillows being thrown and hitting a non-defending body. Sasuke could only blink quickly, trying to get the dust out from his eyes, and stare at the wooden beams above his head, imagining the expressions attached to the voices.

"Is that my Icha Icha?" Kakashi asked, sounding incredulous.

"So? Get out, get out! Stop interrupting my fun!" More thuds, muffled swearing, the sound of what was probably Kakashi hitting the door frame in his haste to exit, and then the firm slam of the door. Soft footfalls against the carpet, and a hand grabbed his arm and to drag him out from under the bed and onto the floor of the brightly lit bedroom.

Sasuke sneezed twice more and then blinked watery eyes up at the naked girl kneeling in front of him holding out a box of tissues begrudgingly. He swiped them with a miserable snuffle and blew his nose, rubbing his eyes. "Don't you ever clean, Loser?"

Naruto frowned down at him, "No. I pay other people to do that."

"Of course you do," muttered Sasuke, balling up the used tissues and tossing them in a waste basket at the base of a desk covered in journals. "You may need to consider giving them a paycut—" Naruto pulled him up to his feet and he swatted her hands away. "Stop that—what's wrong now," he asked with a huff, reacting to her tense expression.

The impatient blonde rested her hands on her hips. "Well, for one, we've only got about two minutes until Kakashi-nii realizes that was a _man's_ yukata he saw hanging from the ceiling and he storms back in here," she pointed toward the rafters.

Sasuke's eyes followed her finger up and, sure enough, there was his yukata swinging gently from a slowly revolving ceiling fan. "How did that get up there?" He asked, bewildered, scratching his head.

"I have no idea," answered Naruto, mildly amused. She paced about the room, bending over to collect other items of clothing which had been hastily and enthusiastically discarded the prior night. Sasuke cleared his throat and averted his eyes, not sure what he should be doing himself.

Naruto popped into his line of sight anyway, holding out some dark fabric as if making an offering, "here's the other half of it."

Sasuke paused and took in Naruto's serious visage, marred by the slightest upward twitch to the right corner of her lip.

He scowled and snatched the garment from her hands, unfolding it and turning it over for his own examination. "How did this even get torn like this? I don't remember this at all!"

Naruto laughed at his dismay, and he looked back at her to discover that she was tossing pillows in the air to knock the rest of his yukata down. It fell lifelessly to the bed and he picked it up, trying to see if there was any way to tie the two pieces together.

There wasn't.

He threw his hands up in the air and wheeled about to face the sniggering girl leaning against the wall. "I can't wear this home!"

Naruto shrugged, far too comfortable with her own nudity for Sasuke's own peace of mind. "Not my problem."

Sasuke expressed himself with his best wounded-cat noise.

Naruto tapped her lower lip thoughtfully. "You can always wrap yourself in the sheet," she suggested, walking over to the bed and balling up the fabric in her hands.

Sasuke grimaced in distaste and crossed his arms.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "Or there's that fuzzy pink bathrobe Sakura-chan gave me last year—"

"I'll take the sheet," Sasuke managed to get out through grit teeth, stalking forward and yanking it from her arms. He tried to drape it about himself as Naruto donned the pink bathrobe she mentioned, circling around him and making cynical comments about his own fashion choices.

When he was finally confident that the bedsheet was secure, she hooked him by the arm and tugged him toward the balcony. She paused before opening the doors, "Here," said the blonde, pressing her fingertips against the bare skin of his collarbone, a faint tingle on his skin the only warning Sasuke had that she'd actually done anything.

"What's that?" Sasuke said, ineffectively trying to crane his neck and see what had happened.

"It's a temporary version of the seal I activated last night," she explained, fussing with the front folds of the sheet. "It completely hides your scent and chakra presence, so no one should be alerted as you make your daring escape," she teased, reaching up to press a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth, distracting him from asking further questions as she opened the doors and pushed out onto the balcony.

Sasuke sniffed, more miffed that the kiss wasn't a _proper_ goodbye kiss than angry at the whole putting a seal on him without express consent issue, "I'm an _Uchiha_ ," he said in his best snobbyish tone, "we don't do _seals_." And he had standards for kisses, damnit. Even if they were with the Loser.

"Mmm," agreed Naruto licking pink lips and drawing Sasuke's attention to them. She grabbed the front of his bed-sheet robe, pulling him in close and then backing him up against the balcony railing. His hand automatically rose to rest in the small of her back, wondering if, after all, maybe he was going to get a proper goodbye kiss before he left. Naruto leaned up on her toes, pressed a hand against his chest, "That's why—"

Sasuke's eyelids lowered, he leaned down—

"—It's a _temporary_ seal, Ass-turd." And with a firm shove and a startled yelp, Sasuke fell backward over the second story balcony railing, hitting the cushioning shrubbery below with some awkward flailing and the snapping of many twigs. He jumped to his feet, snarling and pulling scratchy sticks from places they shouldn't be and smearing strange colored across his sheet-robe. He glowered up at the girl, ready to give her a piece of his mind—

"That seal will last for about 45 more seconds Ass-turd," Naruto cheerfully called down at him, leaning over the balcony railing. "And it doesn't hide sound, so I suggest you start running," she executed a cute little half-wave and blew him a kiss before spinning on her heel and disappearing back into her bedroom.

Sasuke swallowed back the insults he wanted to spew at her retreating back. He took a deep breath, straightened his posture, and took one parting glance at the Loser's Lair.

"Bitch," he muttered, and then a wave of horror washed over his face as he realized how _fond_ the word had sounded. Without further ado, he sped to the nearest boundary line of the Hokage's estate.

XXX

Naruto closed the door behind her, humming happily. _It's really too bad he's an Uchiha, it's just soooo much fun riling him up. If he were anyone else—_ She cut off that train of thought quickly with a derisive snort, shucking the pink bathrobe and tossing it onto the floor of the closet. It came to rest on top of her preferred orange robe. It would have been amusing to send Sasuke home in an orange bathrobe, but she knew better than to send Sasuke home in something she regularly wore.

She turned on the water in her en-suite bathroom, letting it warm up as she went around the room and collected dirty linen and clothes, stuffing them down the laundry shoot before her "brother" could come back in and raise a fuss.

She deactivated the seal on her nightstand, one of her many personal creations. She loved that thing. She was able to modify it to consider so many factors now, sound, smell, chakra…not that she shared that information with many people. The only downside that she'd yet to figure out was that, for some reason, it countered the seal she'd created to act as a doorbell. Her "doorbell" seal was a much simpler creation which alerted her when anyone approached within ten feet of her bedroom door. (Nobody actually locked doors in this house—when several people could use hiraishin in the household, locking rooms became a useless endeavor).

She continued her off-tune humming, tracing the lines of the seal on the wood and turning the problem over in her brain. She crossed the room to make a note of an idea she hadn't tried yet in one of the dozens of sealing journals littering her desk. She shut the notebook and reactivated her doorknob seal, quickly testing everything else just to make sure she hadn't accidently deactivated anything else last night.

After that, she gave the room one last cursory inspection to make sure she hadn't done anything stupid, like leave Sasuke's underwear out on a chair or something. She blinked, _had he actually been wearing underwear? Huh,_ she couldn't remember. She gave the room a bemused smile and walked across the plush carpet, enjoying the feel of the thick, springy material under her feet until she reached the tile of the bathroom, where she proceeded to take her shower.

She sang loudly in the shower, and offkey, using the shampoo bottle as a microphone and belting out silly pop songs. Her "doorbell" alerted her to the fact that company was waiting for her in the bedroom, but since they didn't barge into the bathroom she knew it wasn't her mother or Karin so they could just wait until she finished the chorus of the best break-up song ever, thank you very much.

Snug in her orange robe and padding her hair dry with a towel, she walked out of her bathroom to greet her father. He was sitting on her bed, absently thumbing through one of her sealing journals with a distracted expression on his face. He wore the standard Konoha long-sleeved navy shirt and pants, signature robe folded next to him.

"Morning Daddy," she chirped. She bounced down next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder to better peer at what had caught his attention. He was looking at some of the modified hiraishin she'd been working on with Jiraiya for the past year.

"Hmm," Minato raised his head, dislodging her, "You're getting pretty good at this!"

"Thanks," murmured Naruto dryly. She'd only been training intensely with fuinjutsu for roughly twelve years now, counting her mother's private tutoring and Jiraiya's more recent supervision.

Minato grinned, snapping the journal shut and waving it, "Sorry, I haven't had time to look at any of these in a while, have I?" He stood on his feet and put the journal back with its siblings.

"Nope," agreed Naruto, popping the 'p.' "But it's all for the best, I'm going to have to be a super awesome fuinjutsu master if I'm going to be Hokage one day, aren't I?"

"Right, right," agreed her father with an absent smile, rearranging the journals and paying more attention to the seals he found within them than the conversation.

Naruto's shoulders slumped inward a bit, she suddenly felt very tired. "Watcha' here for?"

"Oh, the usual," said her father, still studying the journals, "Kakashi came to me sulking about some prank you pulled and claiming you were hiding boys in your room or something."

Naruto snorted, leaning back, gesturing to the room with a wide-sweeping arm, "as you can see, no boys here."

"I _can_ see," said her father with a drawl, making a few notations of his own in one of her newer books.

"Even if there were, it's really not any of his business," said the teenage girl, crossing her legs on top of the bed with a pout and grabbing a pillow to fold herself around.

"Your mother would generally agree with you," murmured Minato with a faint smile, "but please stop trying to mentally scar your brother. His hair's already prematurely grayed from having to deal with you, I'm not sure how much more he can take. You've only got one remember, try not to break him."

The younger blonde snorted into her pillow. "Liar, I've seen his baby pictures. His hair has always been that color, he was just born old."

Her father laughed, crossing through some of his own notes, making some more marks, and turning the page. "No matter the truth behind his hair color, while the Suna delegation is here you should probably be a little conservative on the dating front. Please just focus on Gaara-san while he's here."

Naruto buried her scowl in her large fluffy pillow, flashing blue eyes the only thing visible.

Minato looked up briefly from making his notations, grimacing when he caught his daughter's expression. "I know it's not ever something you considered, Naru-chan, but I just want you to be open to the idea." When Naruto didn't respond he sighed and snapped the journal he was holding shut, crossing the room to sit next to her and placing the annotated journal in her lap.

He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in to his side. "I get it, It's asking a lot of you, especially when you have never thought of Gaara-san that way, but it won't hurt anyone for you to entertain his suit for a while and show him around town. Suna isn't that far away and if you did get married, you'd probably go through a two year engagement period at the least, so you wouldn't leave right away. The council's still talking but—"

Naruto felt he father's posture stiffen the way it usually did when someone was trying to summon him through a hiraishin seal. He pulled away from her and she blinked resentfully up at him.

"Sorry darling," he apologized, "duty calls." He kissed the top of her head and rose to his feet, pulling his white and red robe about his shoulders. "We'll finish this conversation later," he said gently, before forcing an old smile across his face, "I've got to go but I'll be back in a—"

"in a Flash!" Naruto finished the saying in the vacuum left by her father's disappearance. She gave a dramatic eye roll and fell back onto her sheet-less bed. "How the hell I am supposed to become the first female Hokage if I'm married to the Kazekage and living in the _desert_!" She turned onto her belly and wailed into the mattress, kicking her feet and fists, giving into the sudden overwhelming urge to throw a tantrum and knocking the journal to the floor, unopened.

XXX

Sasuke kept to the back ways as he snuck home, red-eyes whirring and steadily maintaining a simple area genjutsu which hid his presence, distorting the viewer's perception of Sasuke and everything around him in a one foot radius. It was a simple, but effective tool. Most of the clan learned it as children, but once perfected it was hard to detect and dismiss, not that Sasuke was staying in one place long enough for any of the few shinobi to notice any oddities and investigate.

Still, it paid to be cautious and when he noticed individuals approaching who were likely to be shinobi, he ducked behind bushes and trashcans and such in an extra effort to stay hidden. He exited an alley and took a left between a back road lined with fences on either side. He was just about to reach the end of the fenced road when he heard two male voices conversing, and realized that whoever the pair were, they were about to round the corner and come his way.

Cursing internally, and realizing that he had only a few seconds of preparation time, he first looked for anything nearby with which he might execute a body replacement technique, and found only solid fence lining his view in any direction. Sasuke decided to trust his family's jutsu and knelt down, pressing himself as flat as possible against the fence line. After all, even if they were ninja, it would be highly unlikely they would be able to detect his presence unless they were clan members walking around with activated sharingan—

"Really Shisui," murmured Itachi, "I doubt scanning residential houses with your sharingan is going to reveal my brother's presence. It's a bit invasive," added Itachi, "and probably rude." Because his mother would expect him to make that comment.

"You never know," said Shisui agreeably as they ambled down the lane, "I'm learning lots of information about some of my former squad mates. Looks like Dai-kun spent the night with a girl I'm pretty sure Goro-san was—oh, what's this now?"

_Oh nonononono,_ Sasuke thought furiously, scrunching his eyes shut in panic and fingers clenching tightly in his bedsheet. _This is not happening. This is just a bad dream, the likelihood—_

"Kai!" Came the firm voice of Sasuke's most irritating cousin.

And with that, Sasuke's simple cover broke and he slowly opened his eyes, blinking fiercely, vehemently hoping that the shocked visages of his brother and cousin would fade away any second.

No such luck.

After roughly five seconds of perturbed silence, Shisui folded in on himself with a loud guffaw, slapping his knee and pressing a hand against his gut.

"Oh Itachi," wheezed Shisui, "I take back everything I ever said about Foolish Little Brothers. If they provide this much entertainment, I want ten of them, right now."

Sasuke felt the heat rise to his cheeks and he reluctantly tore his eyes away to focus on his brother. His older brother. Who just last night Sasuke had been thinking about, wondering how Itachi could be so patient with Sasuke's recent ungrateful, childish behavior.

Just perfect. Well, no time like now to carry through on that promise he'd made to himself last night.

Sasuke swallowed, "How has your day been, nii-san?" He asked weakly.

Itachi blinked, taking in the fact that his missing sibling had suddenly appeared, wrapped in a bed sheet and looking like he'd literally had a roll in the hay (or rather, a berry bush of some sort, some twigs, and was that dust in his hair?). He cupped his chin with his hand and considered his sibling. This was a new one. He didn't have a manual for this scenario and none of his mother's lectures, which he usually fell back on when he found himself at loss for words, felt applicable to this situation.

"How was _his day_?" Howled Shisui, still doubled over, "Obviously not as good as last night was for you!" He grinned at the boy and suddenly jolted forward, catching Sasuke, who cried out in surprise, by the back of his neck and pulling him into a side hug, spinning them both about to face Itachi.

"This, Itachi-kun," began Shisui seriously, easily maintaining his grip on his squirming younger cousin, "This moment is made of so much win. This is the winningest moment ever." Shisui nodded gravely.

"Let me go," hissed Sasuke, embarrassed, trying to shrug off Shisui's hands and glaring at the ground.

"You stop talking," Shisui said, tugging on the boy's hair, "I own you now."

"You don't own me," snapped Sasuke, settling for crossing his arms and trying to look like he was standing in this awkward manner on purpose.

"Not forever," agreed Shisui amiably, "but I think this is good for a week at least."

Sasuke opened his mouth to protest, but Itachi chose that moment to speak.

"Whatever you are about to say, otouto," Itachi spoke in a soft, strained tone, "I would consider that unless you wish to appear before mother in your current state of undress, it is Shisui who will be providing you a change of clothes."

"And a bath," agreed Shisui with a sniff, pushing Sasuke a bit farther away. "If I'm feeling generous."

Sasuke slumped in defeat as his older brother and cousin began to prod him forward to the Uchiha district.

"Of course, this is the best walk of shame ever, the bed sheet is an especially nice touch, points for creativity there, but there's been this issue with my mother's rose garden lately and—"

Sasuke groaned and resigned himself to a week of "volunteering" to assist his aunt with yardwork. His eyes flickered toward Itachi, who was staring straight ahead, a faint tick in the muscle of his brother's jaw the only indication his brother was disturbed by the scenario. His shoulders sagged inward and his stomach dropped.

_How do I get myself in these messes? No more girls. For like a long time. At least six months._

Sasuke tried to look objectively at his ability to keep that promise.

_Ok, two months._

* * *

Act II. Scene II.

"You look like shit," commented Jiraiya when Naruto sought him ought for their usual bi-weekly lesson.

The blonde dug her fingers into her notebook, gouging the leather with her nails as she sunk down next to Jiraiya on the riverbank. He was busy writing on a scroll sprawled across his lap, and waited for Naruto to start the conversation.

"Thanks," muttered Naruto finally, looking bitterly at her notebook, "You'd look like shit too if the majority of the village wanted you to marry the Kazekage."

Jiraiya nodded, "I'd probably look worse," he agreed. He set his ink brush down and scratched at his nose, unintentionally smearing ink across it.

Naruto didn't mention it. Just because.

Jiraiya looked at his scroll longingly, "Are we actually going to talk about your projects," he pointed to the brown leather journal clenched tightly in her hands, "or is this going to be another one of those sessions where you tell me how unfair the world is and I grunt in agreement every three minutes when you to pause to breathe?"

Naruto scowled at him and swatted him with her book. "Some godfather you are! I come to you for advice and you try to scare me off so you can finish writing your porn in peace! I'm having a crisis here, help!"

Jiraiya had the decency to look a bit sheepish, "sorry, It's an important scene that's all, and I'm on a roll. Yulene and Kichiro have just decided that they are so passionately in love with each other they are going to run off on a lover's journey rather than obey their parent's orders to separate—"

"How am I supposed to get out of this?" Naruto cut the old man off before he could get wound up explaining his newest novel, best to keep him focused on the important issues. "You're on the council, how are people talking about it? Is there really as much pressure to go through with this as I feel like there is?"

Jiraiya sighed and rolled his neck from side to side, settling in for a long talk. "It looks pretty serious, kid." He folded his arms, "Suna is pushing heavily for the marriage, and the council doesn't see it as an unreasonable request. In fact, they think it's not a bad request at all in light of the injuries Suna is reporting."

The sannin paused and glanced guiltily at Naruto, "Sorry about that, I thought I'd finished off my teammate. It's unpleasant, to say the least, to realize that I was mistaken on that account." His voice grew a bit deeper and more gruff. "It's even more unpleasant for that mistake to come back and cause trouble for you and Minato-kun."

Naruto pulled at the grass, shredding the blades between her fingers and refusing to make eye contact with the man. She knew he needed to hear a verbal offer of forgiveness, but she wasn't quite ready to give one yet. Her father would have already brushed it off, but this was hitting her a lot more personally and the words just weren't coming today, even though she knew her godfather, who she loved dearly, sincerely felt awful about the whole thing.

After a few awkward seconds, Jiraiya cleared his throat and continued. "The main grounds of the debate are that, as an Uzumaki, you are valuable to the village as a potential jinchuriki. It just seems to be easier for members of your clan to handle that burden, and likewise, any children you have are valuable for the same reason…but there is Karin, of course."

"Great," muttered Naruto, "glad to see I'm useful enough to cause at least some people to protest selling me off."

"Hey now," said Jiraiya, "there are a lot of stodgy old idiots on the council, but there are also some people who genuinely care about you and are arguing for your best interests. Hime and I are doing our best, and I know Kakashi has talked to your father in private several times about the matter."

Jiraiya scratched his head, "and some of the older clans are upset that this may set precedent for marrying off politically important clan members to other villages. The Uchiha won't shut up about it, they see it as a violation of a treaty a lot of the founding clans signed when they joined the village, promising that they wouldn't allow individual members to join other villages, for fear of leaking village secrets and giving opposing villages insights to clan secrets which could be used against Konoha. Of course, the problem is that the Uzumaki weren't a founding clan, and they didn't sign that treaty. However, the Uzumaki are so closely tied with the Senju that the Uchiha really don't see that to be a valid point, they see the Uzumaki as an extension of the Senju, which is, admittedly, a nearly extinct clan."

Naruto bit her lip, "Is anyone talking about how I'm going to be a Kage level shinobi and maybe it's not a good idea to let Suna have one of those."

Jiraiya inclined his head, "Yeah, the Suna-nin themselves brought it up. Said gaining a shinobi that powerful was only fair considering they were being forced to combat a shinobi of that level and that it makes up for the cumulated potential power of the children they've been deprived."

"Wow," blinked Naruto, "they're being that cold about it, huh?"

"I think that's politician words they're repeating," said Jiraiya as he watched the blonde closely. "I don't get the feeling that the little red-head thinks that way at all. The couple of times he's spoken on the issue he's stressed he'll only marry you if you consent. Nobody else seems to have caught on to that issue yet, the whole they'll have to gain your consent thing."

Naruto rested her hands on her knees and stared out at the water.

"You know," began the sannin, "your parents aren't unreasonable. If you tell them you don't want to do this, they'll honor your decision."

Naruto tensed, then forced her muscles to relax. "That's not the problem," she tried to explain, "They might not make me, but they need a reason why. I've had them hammer it into my head over the years that as the Hokage's daughter I have a responsibility to act for the good of the village." Naruto huffed, "I've taken that to heart, I want to be Hokage one day. But every time I try to tell them that they just nod along as if it's the same cute thing they've heard me say since I was four. They're not actually listening to me, I can't get them to realize that being Hokage is what I really want, I can't get them to see me as a serious candidate and that's so frustrating."

Naruto pressed her lips together. She took a moment to catch her breath, because she sure as hell wasn't going to cry in front of Jiraiya, not over this.

"I take you seriously," said Jiraiya gently, "Tsunade does, Kakashi does, your peers certainly do…I've seen the way they react to you."

"Yes," admitted Naruto with a forced laugh, "I just can't get anyone else over the age of 25 to give me the time of day right now!"

"You're sixteen—" Jiraiya began.

"I know," stressed Naruto. "And because I'm only sixteen, there aren't a lot of people giving credence to my thoughts and ideas right now, they don't yet see me as having important long-term personal goals. If I say 'no' to marrying Gaara-kun, without having a good reason, one I can get people to listen to, it's going to be seen as selfish. My parents will see it that way, most of the rest of the village will see it that way. And that's not going to help me when I do press forward with my bid for Hokage. If I refuse to do this without a worthy explanation, then when I'm old enough, powerful enough to force them to listen to that explanation, most of them will have already written me off as that selfish little girl who didn't act in the village's best interests when they needed her."

"Well," Jiraiya rubbed at his eyes tiredly, "the logic is a bit convoluted, but I think I understand you. If you refuse to marry Gaara right now, no one will believe you if you tell them it's because you want to be Hokage. At least, none of the village elders?"

"Right." Naruto nodded. "Because I'm a sixteen year old girl who should listen to my betters."

"And then," Jiraiya continued, "the sense of distrust in you created by your refusal will further damage your efforts to actually become Hokage."

"Yes." Naruto kept nodding.

"So," added Jiraiya, "What you need is a good reason for refusing to marry the red-head, one that won't politically offend Suna and one which the population of Konoha will see as a 'good,' age and gender appropriate reason for refusing the marriage?"

"Exactly," agreed Naruto leaning toward Jiraiya hopefully.

The older man sat ponderously for a few minutes, then shrugged, "Good luck, kid. I got nothin'"

Naruto fell backward in frustration, looking up at the sky. "I thought you said you know everything!"

"I knew everything when you were four!" retorted the man, "Then you grew older and made really messy—well, messes. I can't be held accountable for the knowledge of how to resolve any issues created past the date I made the original statement."

Naruto turned her head in his direction and stuck out her tongue. "I just need a good reason for not marrying Gaara-kun…" she trailed off, lost in thought and watching the blue and white of the sky swirl together overhead. "Hey old Pervert," she tossed a wad of grass at him, which predictably, the wind caught and blew in the opposite direction.

"Not old," said Jiraiya, automatically, unfurling his scroll and going back to his writing

"When your book characters don't want to marry someone, what reasons do they give?" Naruto intertwined her fingers and rested them on her belly. What was that game Shikamaru was always playing, trying to make pictures from clouds, right? Well, that one kind of looked like a kunai. The one to the left of it could be Pakkun.

"Uhh…" Jiraiya tapped his brush against the paper resting in his lap. "Usually they don't want to go through with an arranged marriage because they are in love with someone else."

"Oh," said Naruto, disappointed. She really didn't have anyone could she claim to be in love with… _bwahaha, that cloud looks like Ass-turd's hair_.

_Oh_ , thought Naruto, eyes widening, _this may be my best prank ever._

"Hey, hey!" Naruto cried, bolting upright, crawling to place herself directly in front of the sannin.

Jiraiya's eyes widened in surprise, "Yes?"

"You've already admitted you feel responsible for this mess, right?" Pressed Naruto, leaning in with focused blue eyes.

Jiraiya narrowed his own in response. "Partially," he agreed.

"So you'll help me get out of this, right? Because you're my godfather and you love me and you helped make this mess and I didn't do anything to cause this problem, it was all your crazy teammate's fault?" babbled the energetic blonde. "You'll do whatever you can, right?"

"Within reason," promised Jiraiya, already knowing he was going to dread whatever crazy scheme the brat had dreamed up. Maybe it was time to go one of those extended vacations again—

"Excellent," purred Naruto, grinning in a feral manner, before jumping to her feet and sprinting off into town.

"You forgot your—"Jiraiya called after her futilely, "journal. " He groaned and collected the girl's notebook as well as his own materials. He better get home and start packing his bags. He'd need to write a letter to Minato today, too. Most likely, he was going to want to split town the moment the kid let him in on whatever insanity she'd concocted.

* * *

Act II. Scene III.

"A little more mulch," advised Shisui from where he sat on the shaded edge of his mother's porch, directing his younger cousin's work.

Sasuke clenched his jaw, but tore open a new bag and poured out more mulch onto the new rosebushes he was planting in his Aunt's garden. He'd been working for a few hours already, and while the assignments weren't physically demanding, he couldn't deny that the heat was getting to him. He stopped to wipe the dirty back of his gardening glove across his forehead, trying to keep drops of sweat from beading down his forehead and getting into his eyes.

Shisui and Itachi reclined on the porch behind him, supervising. Apparently neither was sure he wouldn't run off if they left—which was actually kind of embarrassing that they couldn't trust him like that, now that he thought about it.

"I'm not going to disappear," Sasuke called back to them, "I know you probably have other things you need to do. I'll finish the garden, I promise." He grunted as he heaved the shovel into the ground to start a fresh hole.

"Oh no, nothing better to do, carry on," Shisui said, waving at him cheerfully before taking a large bite of the watermelon he and Itachi were sharing.

They hadn't offered Sasuke any.

Sasuke's older brother ate his portion more daintily than Shisui and swallowed completely before speaking. "I have devoted my entire day to training you, otouto. Please proceed."

Sasuke scowled and thrust the shovel more forcefully into the dirt. He hated it when his brother relegated him to what were, essentially, D rank missions and insisted on overseeing them as if Sasuke was a green-behind-the-ears genin fresh from the Academy. He got the message, he'd behaved like a child, rushing off and not thinking about how his actions worried others, and now he was being given a childish punishment.

"Besides," added Shisui, "If I left, who would tell you that you planted that last row of roses two inches too far to the right?"

Sasuke stopped shoveling and turned to glare at his cousin. "You're telling me this now? After I've mulched the entire row already?"

Shisui nodded gravely, "Well I had to tell you sometime, didn't I?"

Sasuke felt his back tense in aggravation, "You can't just expect me to—"

"Chop, chop," said Shisui cheerfully, imitating that Daimyo's wife when she was in a particular hurry to repossess that damn cat of hers.

"Sasuke," came Itachi's cool voice, "the client is always right."

"The client is always right," muttered Sasuke under his breath, grip tightening on his shovel as he stomped over to the previously planted rose bushes and began to dig them up again.

Shisui was by far Sasuke's least favorite cousin. He thought he was such hot stuff because of his mastery of the body flicker, and for some reason Itachi would let the older man get away with murder. Sasuke wished he'd just go stick his head in a river and drown.

All of his cousins had the habit of not taking Sasuke seriously and going out of their way to taunt him. It was like they were too scared of Itachi and his father to ever say anything against them, and his mother was just too nice, so all the cousins took their anger out on Sasuke when the clan head came down with some unfavorable policy.

Second son. Second son. Just a little less smart. Just a little less gifted. Just a little less politically inclined. Just a little less dangerous. He'd had lots of talks with Itachi on the matter, especially when they were younger. Sasuke graduated at the top of his class, always got top marks on missions, advanced more quickly than all of his age mates, and yet the only person who seemed to acknowledge how excellent he'd done was the one he was constantly being compared against.

Sasuke huffed as he pulled the fifth rose bush out of the row and started reworking the holes so that they'd meet Shisui's specifications. What did a guy have to do to be taken seriously around here? He was never going to be let in on political discussions the way Itachi was, but he'd still had to memorize the entirety of Konoha's clan laws and the Uchiha's clan ordinances, the same as Itachi, just in case. He'd had to memorize all of the clan's in the village, their strengths and weaknesses, leaders and heirs, and known political preferences. Aside from Father and Itachi, no one else in the clan could say that they had that knowledge.

It was true that Sasuke had taken fewer missions than his clan member peers. He'd heard the rumors about Mother babying him, and admittedly, Sasuke didn't act like the most mature teenager in the world. But the truth behind the issue was that Itachi and Sasuke weren't allowed out of the village at the same time and the Hokage relied on Itachi, a lot. So Itachi got praised for his numerous high-profile missions and great relationship with the Hokage and Sasuke got stuck at home, twiddling his thumbs.

Sasuke hissed as he repotted the first bush too forcefully and he crushed a thorn through his glove and into his finger. He put some pressure on the glove to stop the bleeding and continued, more gently, with the plant a few moments later, dimly aware that Shisui was chatting about nonsense in the background. Sasuke'd even tried to work with the police force briefly, as his brother did on his downtime in the village. The problem was that his clanmates' behaviors were exacerbated in the police station, and after that fifth something went disastrously wrong and got blamed on Sasuke (the changing room was covered in paint, the toilets stopped up and flooded the station overnight, all the uniforms in Sasuke's size disappeared, etc…), even Father noticed something was strange and suggested that Sasuke resume general mission work for the Village.

But there'd been an odd number of graduates in Sasuke's year, and Sakura had apprenticed directly to the hospital while Sasuke had been apprenticed to Itachi. He'd been ecstatic about it at the time, but it meant that Sasuke was used as a substitute on other teams. And, as according to Clan rules, he couldn't leave the same time that Itachi was out, Sasuke's usefulness to the Village was limited. This left Sasuke floundering, trying to figure his role in the Village and Clan, how he could be useful. And it gave him plenty of time to goof off and get in trouble.

Glumly, Sasuke finished re-spreading the mulch over the row of plants and turned to face his temporary supervisors. "Is that acceptable?"

Shisui started, as if he'd forgotten the younger man was there. "Well," he drawled squinting critically at the plants as Sasuke worked on reigning in his temper.

"Shisui," Itachi briefly rebuked their cousin.

"Oh, I suppose it's fine," said Shisui with a sniff. "I'd offer you some watermelon, but I'm afraid we're all out."

Sasuke stuffed his hands in his pocket so he wouldn't give in to the urge to give his cousin the finger. He walked over to the opposite side of the garden, to continue his work on the other row of roses. There had to be some way he could be useful to his clan, to his brother. Sasuke refused to believe that the only purpose he had in life was to be kept safely tucked away as Itachi's less-gifted replacement. He was more than a back-up plan. He knew that, he knew Itachi knew it and Mother. Father was a different matter.

He just didn't have the answer right now. Sasuke blinked, realizing he'd been done potting the rose bush for a while now and was just staring at his hands resting on the dirt. He pushed himself up and went to get the next rosebush, his cousin's irritating voice ringing in his ears.

"—And then they said Suna was demanding that the Hokage fork over hime-chan for marriage to the next Kazekage? Did you hear that?"

"Yes," said Sasuke, absent-mindedly responding to his cousin's question. It took him a few seconds to realize and awkward silence had fallen over the garden. He paused and looked up from the bush he was carrying over to the other two men, who were staring at him in mild surprise.

"Where'd you hear that?" Demanded Shisui, brow crinkling as he tried to come up with the answer to his question on his own.

"I—," Sasuke opened his mouth to speak, and then realized why he couldn't give an honest answer to that question and flushed. If Itachi knew Sasuke had a recent conversation with Loser in which she shared intimate details about her life, it'd probably lead the man to other conclusions that Sasuke would rather Itachi avoid making. "—I heard it from Hatake," finished Sasuke weakly, trying to busy himself with potting his plant so as not to face the suspicion written across his brother's face. "He sounded upset about it."

"Oh _Hatake,_ " started Shisui, in his infamous 'don't get me started tone,' which was exactly the tone Sasuke had hoped the answer would provoke.

"Like Hatake cares anything at all for clan law, he's the worst sort of ninja," ranted Shisui darkly. "He's 100% blind loyalty to the Hokage, not an independent thought or wish in his head. He's a bully and a thief, famous for something he stole and yet too proud to actually ask anyone for training on how to use something he claims was a 'gift.'"

Having heard most of the rant before, Itachi and Sasuke mostly ignored their rambling cousin and each continued their own train of thought.

"Why has he never asked for help? If it was really a gift he'd ask. He doesn't ask because he knows it's a lie and he's worse than a grave—" Shisui stopped his rant, blinking as a Konoha messenger hawk swooped into the garden, landing on the ground and awkwardly holding it's leg out to Sasuke.

"What's that?" Shisui watched his younger cousin curiously.

Sasuke took the message from the hawk and let it climb onto his wrist before he stood and launched it back into the air. He then unrolled what looked to be, from the simple blue band of color around it, a summons from an official. He frowned down at the words on the paper, before looking back to his relatives' expectant faces. "Senju-sama wants to see me," Sasuke offered with a confused shrug, having no explanation for the order to report to her at his earliest convenience.

"Tsunade-sama," said Itachi, straightening and sounding concerned.

"What's that old bat want?" Shisui grunted, offended a non-relative was interfering with his manual laborer for the day.

Sasuke tried to give his brother a reassuring smile. Itachi had a nasty genetic illness a few years ago, and Tsunade-sama was brought in as his primary physician. Sasuke had been tested too, but his results had been negative. Itachi was probably worried she'd been re-doing tests and found something. "I'm sure it's fine, I'll just finish this up and go see her." He slipped the paper into his pocket and began to return to his work.

"No," said Itachi, ignoring Shisui's squawk of protest, "let's go see what Tsunade-sama wants."

Sasuke stiffened, "I can go by myself!" He did not need his brother to hold his hand to the doctor's office.

"No," echoed Shisui with a sigh, "She's a Senju, we'd better go too." Shisui jumped down from the porch and strolled over to Sasuke, pinching his younger cousin's cheeks. "No tellin' what she wants with cute little boys now, is there?"

The only thing that kept Sasuke from kicking his cousin was seeing Itachi roll his eyes behind the older man's back.

* * *

Act II. Scene IV.

"You," hissed Tsunade with a vehemence that startled Sasuke into taking a step backward, when she finally looked up from her medical paperwork to discern the identities of the trio of men who'd invaded her domain.

Itachi placed a hand on Sasuke's shoulder, preventing him from retreating any further.

She gave Sasuke a glare so severe he started frantically mentally recounting every single action he'd taken the past two weeks, trying to figure out what he'd done to offend the woman.

"Tsunade-sama," began Itachi, "you summoned Sasuke-kun?"

Tsunade finally tore her gaze away from the youngest in the room to address Itachi. "Yeah, I summoned the brat. Not any of his keepers. Is there a reason you felt he needed his hand held when he came to see me?"

Sasuke fought down his blush, as well as the desire to turn to Itachi and snippily say 'I told you so.'

Itachi's hand tightened briefly on Sasuke's shoulder and he looked at the younger man with dark eyes.

"I'll be fine," bit out Sasuke stiffly, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded.

"Yes, yes," promised Tsunade in a mocking tone, "He'll be fine. No matter how ticked I am at him, I won't do anything I can't fix before he goes home."

All three Uchiha tensed and the woman seemed to sense what a bad joke that was, she could fix a lot of things.

She narrowed her honey colored eyes in exasperation, "I swear, on the grave of my grandfather, I won't touch one hair on his pretty little head, got it?"

Sasuke felt Itachi relax next to him, and his older brother gave a respectful bow.

Shisui just gave a snort.

Tsunade bared her teeth in what would pass for a smile, among sharks. "Scram."

His relatives left the office and Sasuke once again wondered what he'd done to be left alone with the woman in this mood.

"Sit," barked Tsunade as she leaned back in her chair.

Sasuke sat, back straight as pole, in the uncomfortable leather chair in front of her large office desk. He tried to stare straight at her, like Father had coached, but his eyes kept sliding to the side so he focused on a strange clock over her left shoulder.

Tsunade crossed her arms and observed him, studying his features, trying to find the answer to some question. Sasuke would gladly help with the answer if only she'd ask, anything to get out of this office quicker.

Sasuke counted as the second hand moved three hundred and twenty three times before the blonde finally spoke.

"So," drawled Tsunade, "you're in love with the brat?"

Sasuke blinked, startled for the second time, "I—excuse me?" He settled on asking, not sure who about whom the woman was talking. _Does she mean Sakura?_ He knew she trained Sakura, but surely she would know by now that the two had broken things off. _Is that why I was called, is she mad at me for making Sakura-chan upset?_

Tsunade mis-interpreted Sasuke's growing concern. "Don't worry, the office has privacy seals on it. No one will hear anything said in here." Tsunade leaned forward, continuing her study of the boy.

Sasuke scooted his chair back an inch.

"I'm just going to say this once," Tsunade finally said, waiting for Sasuke to nervously meet her eyes. She allowed a few seconds to pass for the importance of whatever she had to sink in with the boy, then she levelled a finger at him and said flatly: "Hurt her and they'll never be able to reattach your balls."

Sasuke jumped a bit, "I—ok, yes." Because really, what else could one say in response to that?

Tsunade kept eye contact with him for about ten more seconds before turning away with a disdainful snort and reshuffling her paperwork. "She's in the last room on the left. She's got that room sealed too so you can talk freely there—" she paused, a thought occurring to her suddenly and her head snapped back to Sasuke, who'd shakily begun to stand. "If you have sex on the lab desks so help me god I will have you emptying bed pans for a month!"

"Got it," Sasuke hastily agreed. "No hurting her, no sex on lab tables—will lose balls and be emptying bed pans for eternity."

"Right." Agreed the blonde, flipping a pigtail over her shoulder, "Just so long as we understand each other."

"Perfectly," murmured Sasuke, tripping over the transition from carpet to tile flooring while trying to make his exit. He hurriedly closed the door behind him and pressed his back against the hallway wall to avoid being run over by two orderlies who appeared to be having a supply cart race down the hallway.

"I see that shit, STOP IT RIGHT NOW," came the bellow from behind Tsunade's closed office door.

The orderlies paled and immediately slowed, looking the epitome of professionalism as they finished the length of the hallway and rounded the corner, leaving Sasuke's sight. Sasuke tried to collect his thoughts, but didn't succeed. He had no idea what had just transpired in Tsunade's office. He started walking down the hallway, stopping before the door to the last room on the left. The only way he was going to make heads or tails of this situation was to talk Sakura, which was why he squawked in undignified surprise when the door opened, an arm reached out and latched onto his collar, and he was bodily dragged into the room by a petite blue-eyed blonde.

"Let me go, Loser," snapped Sasuke as the door slammed shut behind him.

"Well then don't just stand in the hallway gaping like a stupid fish, Ass-turd!" Naruto pushed him toward a stool at a lab table. "Where've you been, I asked Granny to send for you ages ago!"

Sasuke took a seat and looked up resentfully. "She pulled me in to her office to have tea and crackers, Loser."

"She did what?" Naruto scrunched her brow in confusion.

Sasuke rubbed his forehead, "Do you have any idea why she thought it was necessary to pull me aside and threaten my potential to sire children if I hurt Sakura?"

Naruto frowned, "why would she be talking about Sakura?"

"I don't know," hissed Sasuke, "I thought you would since you apparently sic'd her on me!"

"I didn't sic—," Naruto paused and huffed, "look this is starting all wrong. I asked you here because I need your help."

Sasuke opened his mouth to let loose a sharp retort, but cut himself short at the last moment. He assessed the blonde's agitated posture, and then he decided to savor the moment. He leaned back against the countertop and put on the smirk he knew she found most aggravating. "You need my help?"

Naruto took a seat on the stool across from his, crossing her arms, "I need your help," she grumbled.

"You need my help," Sasuke drawled—

"Yes, we've established I need your help!" Naruto snapped, blue eyes flaring

"Fine then," sniffed Sasuke, making a show of examining the dirt under his nails, "Tell me why the Loser just simply must have my help and I'll tell her what it costs."

Naruto fumed silently for a minute, then pulled herself together, closed her eyes, and took a deep, calming breath.

Sasuke waited, uncharacteristically patient.

"I need you to marry me," said Naruto bluntly.

A lesser person, a _non-Uchiha,_ might have fallen from their stool in shock. Sasuke just twitched.

"I'm sorry?" Sasuke asked, looking around, he just had the weirdest out-of-body experience for a few seconds—Loser hadn't managed to poison him or put him in a genjutsu, had she?

"I said," repeated Naruto, opening her eyes and gazing directly at Sasuke, "I need you to marry me."

Sasuke looked to the left, then the right, and then shook his head, as if trying to clear it. "Kai," he murmured trying to throw off any genjutsu, frowning when he didn't feel anything dispel. "I'm sorry," he addressed Naruto again, "I keep hearing you say you need me to marry you."

"I do," Naruto confirmed, nodding, "It's not a genjutsu, I need you to marry me."

It took Sasuke roughly three seconds to realize his jaw was hanging unattractively open. "I don't—" he shook his head again. "Where is this coming from?" She seemed absolutely serious, which was making him feel something that was probably close to panic, but must be something else, because Uchiha didn't panic. "On what planet does this possibly seem like a good idea? Why would you think I would ever agree to that?"

Naruto, also being uncharacteristically patient, let him ramble.

"We hate each other!" Burst out Sasuke.

"We don't hate each other," corrected Naruto, "our ancestors have a history of aggressive opposition in matters of public policy and we've inherited that legacy and adopted it to our own daily interactions."

Sasuke couldn't spare the brainpower to try and unravel that statement right now, "We try to knock the shit out of each other every opportunity we get!"

"That's only because we each know that the other is the best and can take it, it's evidence of an unspoken admiration for each other's abilities," responded Naruto, still sounding calm.

"You stabbed me with a kunai," insisted Sasuke, "when we were four! For accidentally falling on your stupid sandcastle!"

"I stabbed you with a senbon for insulting my brother," corrected Naruto, "and you gave me a black eye for the same reason, so I think we're even on that account."

"Where are you even coming up—do you have notes on your hand?" Hissed Sasuke, noting that the girl's eyes kept darting down before she spoke.

"No!" Naruto turned her palm down.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

"Ok," admitted Naruto, "for the sake of turning over a new leaf and honesty, maybe. But that doesn't matter, what matters is that I need your help, and at the moment that means I need to know if you are willing to hear me out on this plan."

"This isn't a plan," groaned Sasuke, "it's a sudden insanity and I don't want to catch it. Why do-you said we would wake up and everything would go back to normal! That we'd go back to hating each other and never trust each other or have weird conversations again!" Sasuke so very, very badly wanted to go back to the night of the festival and tell Hatake Kakashi that yes, he had seen Naruto, she was hiding under the table across the way with five empty liquor bottles keeping her company. Would he please kindly haul her off and get her head examined? Thank you.

"I did," agreed Naruto, "and I'm sorry, but that was before I realized how serious this whole 'marry Gaara' thing was and I can't let that happen. This is the best way, trust me," she sounded bizarrely sincere, leaning forward and accosting him with earnest azure eyes.

"In what alternate universe does 'us getting married' become the best solution to any problem?" Sasuke's gestures were becoming rather animated and Un-Uchiha-like, so he clasped his hands together and set them in his lap. He leaned back against the countertop and tryied to regain control of his facial muscles and seem uninterested in the girl's plight. Which was difficult, because of all the many things the Loser was, uninteresting had never been one of them.

"Right," said Naruto, gathering herself to explain. "It's like this, I'm going to be Hokage someday. It's my goal, I know it, you know it, everyone our age knows it, Tsunade and Jiraiya know it—right?"

Sasuke nodded slowly, "I think I can recall you screaming something along those lines in three-fourths of our interactions."

"And you know I seriously mean it?" Asked Naruto, gaze piercing.

Sasuke grunted, "I've never really thought about it, but I didn't think you were yelling for the fun of it, if that's what you are asking."

Naruto made a sour face. "Well I am, serious about it. I always have been."

Sasuke sighed, "What does this have to do—"

"I'm getting there, keep your pants on As—" Naruto seemed to remember that insulting Sasuke wasn't the best decision when you were asking for extreme favors, and the realization looked physically painful.

Sasuke felt a bit of joy for the first time that day.

Naruto took another deep breath. "My parents don't think it's a serious goal, and no one older than twenty will take me seriously either." Naruto looked upset, and Sasuke tried to push down the twinge of sympathy in his own heart at hearing someone else complain of not being taken seriously.

"So," continued Naruto, "if I tell people I don't want to marry Gaara because I want to be Hokage someday, it's going to seem unrealistic, silly and selfish. And my parents will look like they are indulging their spoiled only child, again." She sat stiffly and looked at the floor.

Sasuke felt as uncomfortable as she looked. "I still don't see how this led you to decide that marrying me is the answer."

Naruto intertwined her fingers, "Well that's just it, I can't refuse to marry Gaara based on the Hokage issue, because that is a 'bad' reason, people won't buy it. So I need a 'good' reason to avoid marrying Gaara, one that people will believe and acknowledge as reasonable. But the only one I can come up with, and believe me I've tried to brainstorm on this issue with several people, is that I'm already in love with someone else, and I elope with this person to avoid marrying Gaara."

"That," Sasuke wanted to say that was ridiculous, that it was the cliché plot-line of every trashy romance novel he'd caught the girls at the Academy gossiping over, but then he realized that it was perfect for just that reason. It was a story-line people already bought into, and respected. The clan-less civilians, especially, would respect that it was Naruto's decision to marry, and from what he remembered of Shisui's and Itachi's earlier conversation, the clans didn't want her to marry out of the village either. They'd frown at the logic, but they weren't going to protest, especially if it secured her ties to the village, didn't offend Suna—

"This isn't going to start a war with Suna?" Sasuke asked quickly, mind racing.

"No," Naruto shook her head, "I know Gaara, part of his conditions is that I marry him willingly. He won't care why I refuse, he'll honor my choice and we'll still be friends." She reluctantly added, "I'm not trying to be mean, but he doesn't have enough friends and allies that he can write me off because of that."

"Why does it have to be me," pressed Sasuke, "Surely Kiba, or Shikamaru, or even that creepy boy Sai would be better!"

Naruto continued to shake her head, "It has to be you. You're the only person I know with both a recent personal history, and a family history, which allows me to get away with this. Because you've been seeing Sakura, I can pretend we've been having an affair the past few months. And because our families hate each other, everyone will believe that we would have hidden an affair rather than publicize it."

Sasuke froze, dreading the answer to this question, "What does Sakura have to do with any of this?"

Naruto elaborated, "If this was going to work, I knew I'd have to bring Sakura-chan in on it. She'll vouch for us that all those times you were sneaking off to see her, you were really going to see me." Naruto looked smug, like a cat licking the cream off its' paws. "And everyone believes Sakura-chan."

Sasuke felt a bit ill, "Why would she agree to this!"

"Sakura-chan is all about the power of the individual against the institution, especially when it comes to the rights of women to be heard and have choices in the military. You should know that Sasuke-kun," said Naruto with a simpering smile.

Sasuke felt his stomach twist, they'd have to address appropriate names and—oh no, oh no, he was not going to be drawn into this. "This requires us to fool half the population of Konoha, including our families and parents, and, you know get married," sniffed Sasuke, "which is a permanent commitment, if you haven't heard."

"First," ticked off Naruto on her fingers, "We don't need to fool half the village, people like love stories and will be willing to believe this unless we give a clear reason to them to believe otherwise. Second, our families, will, admittedly be slightly confused. Think of it as a Declaration of Adulthood. Third," she wiggled her eyebrows, "haven't you ever heard of divorce for irreconcilable differences?"

"Uchiha don't get divorced," said Sasuke stiffly.

Naruto looked at him doubtfully.

Sasuke cut her off before she could start listing off names, "Uchiha related to my mother by the third degree of consanguinity don't get divorced."

Naruto snorted, "Don't worry, I'll be the worst, most un-submissive, un-traditional daughter-in-law ever. Your mother will think I'm insane, she'll be ready to throw you a party by the time you finally announce we're divorcing. Now, for this to be believable, we're probably going to need to be married for at least three years—"

Sasuke made a sound like one of Naruto's toad summons had lodged itself in his throat.

"—But, we're only sixteen now. That means we'll be roughly 19 by the time we end our marriage. That's plenty young to remarry, and in a few years everyone will write our marriage off as youthful indiscretion." Naruto cleared her throat and eyed Sasuke speculatively, "I believe that leaves us to discuss, Sasuke-kun, what your terms would be for the relationship."

"I never agreed—" began Sasuke urgently.

"I know," soothed Naruto, "you may not be considering anything at the moment. But I want you to know this, Sasuke." Naruto kept eye contact with him, and poured all the intensity she could muster into the next few words. "I will be Hokage one day, Sasuke. That's a promise of a life-time. And when I am, I'll be the most politically powerful person in Konoha." She leaned back, "I'm in a bad position right now Sasuke, you have all the power at the table. Make your demands, I'll see what I can do to meet them."

Sasuke blinked and sat back, for the first time seeing the potential political power that Naruto might wield and trying to think through the implications of what she was offering. Anything he wanted-he wanted power, a way to be seen as useful to his clan, as someone other than Itachi's less capable back-up. Being married to the Hokage's daughter—even if only briefly would give him some of that…but, also—

Sasuke cleared his throat, ready to pretend like he was considering this nonsense and lay his demands out on the table. "A written, witnessed contract with definite terms. Three years. Then we divorce for 'irreconcilable differences.' I want a mutual no-disparagement clause for after the divorce, and a mutual confidentiality clause protecting clan-related matters learned, by either party, during the marriage."

"That's workable," murmured Naruto, trying and failing to keep the excitement off her face.

"You will teach me fuinjutsu," Sasuke demanded, "everything you know."

"But," Naruto looked confused, "You said Uchiha don't do fuinjutsu?"

"Exactly," Sasuke purred, enjoying the moment when her eyes lit up with understanding.

"Oh! So that would make you the only one who knows that then, ok." She paused, "I can't teach you everything though, some things are Uzumaki clan secrets and Hiraishin is being kept within my family."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, "How much of what you know would you classify as 'family secret' and unteachable?"

Naruto mulled over the question, worrying one of her pigtails. "Well, lots of stuff I use is my own creation. I can teach you all of that. But probably, somewhere between 6-10% of what I know I'd refuse to teach you."

The Uchiha rubbed his chin, "can you tell me the subject matter of what I won't be learning?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded amiably, "there's hiraishin, like I said, and there's some water controlling seals, some seals that interact with chakra chains, some seals which can control people which I know the principles behind, the theory, but Mom's forbidden me from using, and then uh—" Naruto rolled her head back in thought for a minute before snapping it back, "how to seal bijuu, I won't teach you that."

Sasuke nodded, "I'll agree to that. Expressly summarize what you won't teach me in the contract and promise to teach me everything else."

Naruto was practically bouncing in her seat.

Sasuke wouldn't smile. He wouldn't. "AND," he drawled, "I will work with you to make you Hokage."

Naruto grimaced, "I don't need—"

"No," interrupted Sasuke, "you do need. You may have had some political training but you clearly haven't had what I had, or you wouldn't have let me know just how much bargaining power I possess at the moment. I will teach you politics, and you will agree to do your best to learn from me or I walk away."

Naruto settled back down. "Fine," she said grudgingly.

"Good," said Sasuke, "Because my next demand is contingent upon you becoming Hokage."

Naruto beamed, clearly pleased with hearing someone else verbally address her goals as a realistic possibility.

"When you become Hokage," continued Sasuke, "I want to be your first choice, for the first open councilor position available on your council."

Naruto held up a hand, indicating she wanted to think on that request for a minute. Sasuke let her consider the matter, her face was so full of expression he could practically see all the different thoughts dancing through her brain. They'd have to fix that, if she was going to be Hokage. If she wasn't going to be Hokage, all this trouble really wouldn't be worth it in the end, even though knowing fuinjutsu would be nice.

Finally, Naruto straightened up and nodded. "Ok," she agreed, "I think that'll be fine. I mean, I want to run it by Sakura-chan first, but you've—" she hesitated, looking as if it cost her something to admit to this, "you've always shown good logic and decision making on your missions, I checked," admitted the girl. "I think you've shown good judgment, and even though we've almost always disagreed, on everything, that's actually what the council is for, to get different opinions to act as a check and balance on the Hokage's own viewpoints. It'd be a bad idea to fill it up with people who just agree with everything I say. So yes—that is, contingent upon Sakura-chan also approving the condition."

Sasuke tried not to let it rankle that the Loser had been digging through his private files. Instead he concentrated on the compliments, secure in the knowledge that Sakura admired his political points of view based on their past debates. _Eat that Itachi_ , Sasuke thought, _You may be Clan Head, but I'm going to be Advisor to the Hokage._

"Is that all," Naruto asked, looking at him curiously.

Sasuke wasn't sure how he could gain more power from this transaction, but still, "Just a few housekeeping matters."

Naruto scowled, "I don't keep house."

"That's not—It's a figure of speech." Sasuke decided it was best to keep talking. "First, we can't be calling each other Ass-Turd or Loser anymore, I suggest we agree to suitable names, lest we start a row in public over something ridiculous."

Naruto scrunched up her nose, "You sounded so much like your brother just then. Fine, I'll call you Sasuke-kun? Is that right? Or just Sasuke?"

"That's acceptable," agreed Sasuke.

Naruto rolled her eyes at the brevity of his response. "You can call my Naruto or Naru or Naru-chan, I don't really care. But don't call me hime-chan, I hate that." She glared at him and crossed her arms in a challenging manner.

That bodes so well for our upcoming marriage, thought Sasuke dryly. He fought down a flash of panic that he was both agreeing to marry this girl and wondering how the hell he was going to pull this one off.

"Speaking of brothers," Sasuke gave a cough and cleared his throat, not sure how to approach the subject. "I'm sure by now we're both aware that we have over-protective older ones with dangerous reputations and abilities."

"Yes?" Naruto sounded uncertain.

"I'm just proposing," said Sasuke, "that while I'm sure both of us could be discreet if we either decided to have an affair, that it would be safer for the general health of us both if we agreed to be, for lack of a better word, 'faithful,' during our marriage." And wasn't that painful to think of? Three years of just Lo—Naruto. Not that she wasn't attractive.

"Oh," blinked the blonde, twisting one of her pigtails between her fingers, "Yeah, that's probably for the better, I wouldn't want Itachi coming to threaten me and nii-san would probably be one to act first and ask questions later."

"It's not just them," drawled Sasuke, "Tsunade-sama already threatened to manually remove certain parts of my body that I'm rather attached to, if I don't treat you properly."

Naruto grinned nervously, "Yeah, I kind of told her and Jiraiya about it already. I needed to gauge their reactions to it and see if it was worth pushing forward. Neither of them know its, you know," Naruto gestured wildly, "staged. Just Sakura-chan knows that."

"Well," said Sasuke, feeling even more awkward but needing clarification on this next issue if he was going to be "faithfully" married to Naruto for three years, "now that we've agreed on that, I'd like to clarify whether intercourse is on the table?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "I'm pretty sure Granny would kill us if we had sex on the lab tables. Potential contamination issues and all that."

Sasuke could feel his face turning red and he glared at her. "It was an expression."

Her blank face broke into a mischievous grin, "I know."

Sasuke glared harder. He glared as if his glare could melt sunshine and rainbows and kill puppies.

Naruto giggled, "The other night was pretty fun wasn't it?" She hopped off the stool, "I wouldn't be opposed to repeating the procedure," she drawled, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "But let's agree that we'll ask beforehand and only proceed if both parties agree, ok?"

Sasuke was still blushing, "Right, I mean. That's good, I just wanted to know—"

Naruto grinned wider. "It's cute, you know, that you ask instead of just expecting. I like it."

"Cute," muttered Sasuke, rolling back his shoulders before standing to stretch.

"Where are you going?" He called out to the blonde heading to the door.

"To get Sakura," informed Naruto, "I had her draw up contracts, because I knew you'd want it all professional, you're so up-tight on those things, but she'll need to add some of the provisions you requested and then she'll witness the documents to make them legal."

"Good," nodded Sasuke, appreciating the girl's foresight for the first time in his life. Wait—"Sakura suggested that didn't she?"

Naruto looked offended for three seconds, then her posture collapsed with an indifferent shrug. "Yeah, she did." She gripped the door handle, but turned to face him instead of heading out. She bit her lip, "I told her about the other night too, just to be honest about things."

Sasuke stiffened. That was embarrassing, he and Sakura hadn't been together anymore, but still, no girl, in Sasuke's experience, liked to hear of their ex getting together with someone else so quickly. Especially when it was the ex getting together with that girl's best friend.

"I told her we were stupid and sad and drunk, and we'd planned to never repeat it," continued the blonde. "She was a bit miffed at us, but she says she's forgiven us about it and I believe her. She's the best like that," muttered Naruto sounding guilty.

Sasuke relaxed.

"But she said she still expects an apology from you," added Naruto.

He tensed up again.

Naruto cackled, "Oh, calm down, Sasuke-kun, it'll be fine."

Sasuke gave her a sulky look. Clearly, Naruto hadn't been on the other end of Sakura's 'I'm disappointed in you lectures.' He could swear the girl took lessons from his mother. But then again, maybe the blonde was just immune to those types of speeches. She had to have developed a fairly thick tolerance to them to come up with this plan.

"Actually," Naruto drawled thoughtfully, "I think she may even like you better for going through with this crazy plan." She sounded mystified.

Sasuke perked up a bit.

"Don't even," Naruto said with a warning shake of her head. "She's still too good for you."

The Uchiha snorted, "And you're not?"

Naruto shrugged, opening the door, "I'm desperate."

* * *

Act II. Scene V.

"I said within reason," said Jiraiya slowly, taking in the tableau in front of him. "I'm not sure this qualifies."

Tsunade gave an affirmative grunt as she perched on the edge of the desk in her office, Jiraiya having stolen her chair for the moment.

Haruno Sakura blinked innocently back at them from across the desk. "It's all perfectly legal and permissible," she stated calmly. "Naruto and Sasuke are both consenting adults. I've told you, they've been seeing each other for a while, but I've pretended to be the one in a relationship with Sasuke because we all knew that their parents would forbid them from seeing each other if the relationship was made public. Unfortunately, the current political climate has accelerated matters more quickly than I believe any of us desire, but we all know the easiest, least objectionable way to keep Naruto from marrying Gaara is if, of course, she's already married." Sakura smiled sweetly, "which is why we require your assistance." She pushed the marriage certificate across the table, along with the lines for the traditional marriage speech in Konoha.

Uchiha Sasuke stood to Sakura's left, studying the wall as if it might hold the secrets of the universe.

Naruto beamed at both Jiraiya and Tsunade from Sakura's right, as if she'd never been more excited to do something in her life.

Tsunade poured herself a drink from the bottle of sake that was supposed to be used for the wedding ceremony.

"Look," said Jiraiya, refusing to reach for the papers, "I know it's legal, and I understand it's the best political option, but just—" he sighed, "It feels wrong going behind Minato-kun's back like this and marry his daughter to the son of one of his biggest political rivals. Can't you—"

"No." Snapped Naruto, suddenly sounding angry, enthusiasm dimmed. "He won't listen, and it won't reflect well on him otherwise. We've been over the options and you promised to help because this is somewhat your fault. It's both of your faults, because neither of you could stomach hunting down your insane teammate and taking care of your problems before everything blew up." Naruto really didn't care about how unfair and rude she was being at the moment. "I love you both, but I'm not going to sacrifice my dreams because of your mistakes." She put her hands on her hips and faced Jiraiya. "You are _my_ godfather," reminded Naruto, "and this is the best option. We've already agreed on this and I know you've been approved to take vacation starting tomorrow, so get on with it already. I'm not leaving this office until that certificate is signed."

Jiraiya deflated a bit, ruing the day he agreed to be a village elder, and as a certified public official of the village, became legally capable of officiating marriage ceremonies. He perked up, "Don't your Clan heads have to approve your marriage?"

Naruto gave him a disbelieving look, "No, that's so last century."

"Sasuke?" Sakura asked, knowing that 'last century' was kind of popular with his own clan.

Sasuke shook his head, studying the carpet. "They can exile me if they disprove of my choice of wife, but they're not going to. And no one has to approve my marriage." He was marrying the Hokage's daughter. Once his clan got over the shock, they'd probably decide it was the political coup of the century. They might even find it, dare he say…funny.

"I'm not sure I believe this still," chimed in Tsunade, cradling her cup with one hand. "Do you even know what each other's favorite color is?" She wasn't going to play witness for this sham of a wedding if they couldn't even answer simple questions like that, she'd look like an idiot.

Sakura elbowed Sasuke. He jumped and scowled, but also reluctantly muttered, "orange," before disdainfully looking away again.

"Well," mumbled Jiraiya, "Like that was hard. What about you, Lover Girl?"

"Black." Naruto answered, then a beat, "like his soul—Ack!"

Sakura smiled at her elders and pretended she hadn't been pulling Naruto's hair.

Tsunade eyed the Uchiha grimly, "sounds right to me."

Jiraiya sighed, deeply. Rubbing at his temples he made one last-ditch effort to end this nonsense, by addressing the more logical of the pair. "Look, Boy," Jiraiya began, "I don't know what she's promised you, but it can't be worth the nightmare the two of you are going to face when this becomes public and the shit hits the fan."

Sasuke turned to face Jiraiya, "She's promised me nothing," he said calmly. "Your suspicions are unfounded. I love Naruto, I always have, and I don't enjoy the idea of her being forced into a marriage with Gaara." He'd practiced saying that in his mirror all night, until he could say it without twitching. It took longer than expected, but he was proud to be able to show Jiraiya the fruits of his labor today.

Jiraiya stared at him a few seconds with a firm frown before deadpanning, "Seriously, what'd she say she'd give you?"

Ok, Sasuke thought, sulking mentally, maybe he still needed a little work.

Silence filled up the small office until it became clear nothing was going to happen until one of the trio offered some kind of explanation.

Naruto cleared her throat, "the sex is good," she offered.

"The sex is great," absently agreed Sasuke, apparently with too much enthusiasm because Sakura whacked him upside the head. Hard.

He blushed and scowled at the girl, who glared right back at him, until the thud of Tsunade's cup hitting the desk brought all of their attention to the sannin.

"I knew this was all your fault," said the older blonde, scowling darkly at her teammate.

Jiraiya could only twitch, face torn between looking horrified at the announcement or proud of his student's apparent prowess and bargaining abilities.

Naruto cleared a throat and held a hand up to obscure the words she was silently mouthing to her godfather. 'You will sign those papers,' her lips formed the silent words, eyes narrowed, 'or I will tell Granny Vol. 5 was about her.'

"It was not!" Burst out Jiraiya as Tsunade looked suspiciously between the two.

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" Naruto gave an indifferent shrug.

It didn't really, Jiraiya acknowledged with a scowl, as long as Hime thought it was about her there would be hell to pay. "Give me a pen," he grunted, leaning forward in resignation.

"Ooops," said Tsunade, shaking the now-empty sake bottle upside down "look at that, the sake is all gone, guess we'll just have to postpone—"

"It's okay," said Sakura cheerfully, jade eyes hard, "I brought extra." She pulled another bottle out of her purse and set it on the table. "Just in case anyone was feeling too," her gaze flickered toward her mentor, "celebratory," she settled for saying.

Tsunade pursed her lips at her apprentice, expression displeased and re-assessing.

Jiraiya was glad he wasn't the only one regretting having taught the next generation a little too well today, he pulled the papers in front of him with a sigh and began to recite in a flat, unenthused tone, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the presence of these witnesses to join Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto in matrimony…"

He was going to regret this. Jiraiya just knew it. This was going to be worse than the time he convinced Orochimaru to dress up in drag to compete against Hime in a beauty contest. He just knew it.

 


End file.
